WHY VOTERS VOTE FOR INCUMBENTS BUT AGAINST INCUMBENCY - A RATIONAL CHOICE EXPLANATION

In recent elections, voters supported initiatives to limit the number of terms that their representatives may serve, yet at the same time, o verwhelmingly re-elected their incumbents. We provide a theoretical ex planation for this and other puzzles associated with voting on term li mitations. The pattern of voting on term limits can be explained by th e desire to redistribute power from one party to another, from one bra nch of government to another, and from districts with long-term incumb ents to districts whose representatives have served only for a short t ime span. We test these hypotheses by looking at voting patters on Cal ifornia Proposition 140 and the vote on the 22nd Amendment with genera lly positive results.