Mass Exodus of State Legislators

Governing: “Like a recurring astronomical event, this year’s election cycle features a once-a-decade confluence of term limits and redistricting — a confluence that is expected to produce unusually high levels of turnover among state lawmakers.”

“The last time an election occurred in the wake of redistricting was 2002. That year, just under 24 percent of legislative seats changed hands in the November election… That was a higher rate than in any election cycle between 1998 and 2008, when the turnover ranged between 14.4 percent and 21.5 percent… But the scale of what could happen in 2012 may be unprecedented. That’s because this fall’s elections will immediately follow another high-turnover election cycle — the 2010 cycle, in which Republicans made widespread gains in state legislatures and produced a turnover rate of slightly less than 24 percent.”