Law Commons^™

Understanding Congressional Reform: Lessons From The Seventies, Rafael Gely, Asghar Zardkoohi

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to examine voting behavior of representatives when faced with dual constraints (constituents back home and the leadership) as compared to one constraint (constituents back home). An ambitious goal of the study would have been to examine the effects of both sets of reforms. However, there are two reasons for not using the 1995 reforms in our empirical examinations. First, not enough time has passed to fully observe the effect of term limits on voting behavior. Second, and more importantly, the leadership, whose power it was to impose a constraint on a representative's promotional opportunities, …