THE NATURE OF POLITICAL SERVICES, LEGISLATIVE TURNOVER, AND TELEVISION

We have considered the possibility that the number of new members in a state legislative session may be determined by some other things beside the seats up for election, district size and the presence of multimember districts. When we do this, we call into question Crain and Goff's conclusion that states with televised legislative sessions constitute a different population. But even controlling for other institutional details, our empirical work supports their hypotheses. Apparently television changes the nature of political services, makes them more like search goods and may even affect the nature of the returns from being a legislator. © 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers.