Samantha Pettey, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts - Term Limits Open Doors for Women Candidates

Term limits in politics open doors for more women candidates. Why is this?

Samantha Pettey, professor of political science at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, examines the data.

Faculty Bio:

Samantha Pettey is a Professor of Political Science in the Department of History and Political Science at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. She holds a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, an M.A. from the University of Rhode Island, and a Ph.D from the University of North Texas. At MCLA, she teaches a wide variety of courses in American Politics, some of which include Women and Politics, Campaigns & Elections, and Political Psychology. Her research interests are a blend of gender politics, campaigns and elections, and US institutions both at the state and national levels. Her forthcoming manuscript titled “Run, Women, Run!: Term Limits and Women’s Paths to Power in the States” examines how term limits shape women’s emergence and representation in the states.

Transcript:

When I recorded an Academic Minute in 2019, women held about 28% of state legislative seats. Today, they hold a third of the seats, and while that progress is meaningful, it’s not parity.
In my research, I examined nearly 170,000 state legislative candidates in all 50 states from 1990 through 2022. Given the unique quasi-natural experiment created by term limits, I test many of the book’s hypotheses using difference-in-differences—which compares states with and without term limits before and after they are implemented. I find term limits encourage more women to run, which roughly equates to 4 additional candidates for every 100 women running. Further, at an individual level, term limits increase a woman’s probability of winning and ultimately lead to more women being elected at the state level. For example, in state senates that have term limits, I find 10 additional Republican women winners for every 100 women candidates and 5 additional Democratic women.
Leaving the abstract, Massachusetts and California offer a useful comparison. In terms of women’s representation, the Center for American Women in Politics ranks California 4th while Massachusetts ranks 33rd. This is puzzling given the states are similar on many economic and political measures. But California has term limits and women hold nearly half of the seats, while Massachusetts does not have term limits and women make up about 31% of the legislature.
This comparison does not mean term limits alone explain the difference, given that one factor rarely does. Instead, my research’s central argument is that term limits matter because they create predictable openings and force turnover in institutions where incumbency has historically favored men. But the broader political environment also matters and when these openings are paired with favorable state environments, more women are ready to take strategic advantage of these openings to run, win, and move through the political pipeline.