DOES FEDERAL ELECTORAL REDISTRICTING INDUCE CONGRESSIONAL QUITS - AN EMPIRICAL NOTE

The present paper used national data to examine the outcome of politic al redistricting (in the United States), from the 1982 amendments to t he Voting Rights Act of 1965, on congressional quits (retirements) in the U.S. House of Representatives. Our results suggest that the redist ricting efforts created by these 1982 amendments have led to significa ntly lower retirement rates within the U.S. House. In fact, upon perfo rming various unit root tests for variable stationarity and developing first-difference statistical equations, our results suggest that reti rement rates after the passage of the 1982 amendments are approximatel y 10.5 to 15 percent lower. Such results contradict much of the previo us work in the political science field, yet confirm many of the result s beiung put forth by public choice scholars.