Authors libby rittenberg 830
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and the desire of politicians to win elections. In the real world, it is not
individual voters who count but well-organized groups that can deliver the
support of voters to a candidate.
Public choice theorists argue that the inevitable importance of specialinterest groups explains many choices the public sector makes. Consider,
for example, the fact noted earlier in this chapter that a great many U.S.
transfer payments go to groups, many of whose members are richer than
the population as a whole. In the public choice perspective, the creation of
a federal transfer program, even one that is intended to help poor people,
will lead to competition among interest groups to be at the receiving end of
the transfers. To win at this competition, a group needs money and
organization—things poor people are not likely to have. In the competition
for federal transfers, then, it is the nonpoor who often win.
The perception of growing power of special-interest groups in the United
States has led to proposals for reform. One is the imposition of term limits,
which restrict the number of terms a legislator can serve. Term limits were
first established in Colorado in 1990; California and Oklahoma established
term limits the same year. Subsequently, 18 other states adopted them.
They have been found unconstitutional in four State Supreme Courts
(Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming). They have been
repealed by the state legislatures of Idaho and Utah. Thus, term limits now
apply in 15 states. [1]
One argument for term limits from the public choice perspective is that
over time, incumbent legislators establish such close relationships with
interest groups that they are virtually assured reelection; limiting terms
may weaken these relationships and weaken special interests. The
Attributed to Libby Rittenberg and Timothy Tregarthen
Saylor URL: />
Saylor.org
830
