Membership Turnover in U. S. State Legislatures: 1931-1976

This study offers comprehensive data on the turnover of legislators in the fifty U.S. states for the past four-and-one-half decades. The data show that turnover rates vary substantially among the states over this long period of time; however, the general trend is for turnover to have decreased in recent years. A breakdown is offered of various legislative institutional types, including not only the familiar dichotomy between the senates and the houses but also distinctions between staggeredand nonstaggered-term senates, four-year and two-year term senates and the two-year versus four-year term houses. This detailed specification of the different institutional types produces some interesting and potentially useful findings regarding the rates of turnover associated with the different types of state legislatures.