State legislative term limits and the law of unintended consequences: An examination of member behavior, power structures, and legislative organization in Florida

The implementation of term limits on state legislators has provided a wealth of data for study. Florida, the second largest state in the Union with term limits, has not been comprehensively studied. This research examines the effects of term limits on electoral competition, member composition, legislator career paths, legislative leadership, and intra- and inter-governmental influences on Florida's legislature. This study looks at the Florida legislature from 1992 when term limits were enacted through 2004, three electoral cycles in which term limits have been in effect. This study uses both quantitative and qualitative data where appropriate. Electoral data is used to assess electoral and demographic effects, as well as member career trajectories. Interview data with current and former legislators, lobbyists, and executive branch officials is used to analyze both changes in legislative organization and intra- and inter-governmental influences on the legislative process. Term limits has only created greater competition when a legislative seat opens and has actually created a greater advantage for incumbents. Women and minorities have only made minimal gains in winning seats post-term limits. Newly elected legislators are not political novices with a vast majority having previous elective experience. Leadership is more centralized under term limits and the Senate has gained an advantage over the more inexperienced House. Lastly, the influence of staff, lobbyists, and most importantly, the governor has greatly increased under term limits. This research finds that term limits have not produced the consequences that proponents had envisioned.^

Androgyny versus Patriarchy: A Historicist‐Psychoanalytic Reading of Hemingway's The Garden of Eden and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White

This paper will examine how male and female character interactions in Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden and Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White expose the internalization, normalization, and perpetuation of current modes of patriarchy in terms of gender roles through their presentations of androgyny. This paper highlights the parallels of gender construction and the interaction within the social relations depicted in these two novels, which have not been compared previously. The premise, based on the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan and cultural materialism of Raymond Williams, is that fiction reflects historical and contemporary social relations. Lacanian and feminist interpretations have both been conducted on literature written by Collins and Hemingway; however, neither look at these particular novels as two examples for the same contemporary phenomenon of 21st century patriarchal interpellation. This paper most similarly follows the work of Slavoj Žižek who analyzes contemporary social relations through film (including classics such as Casablanca and works by Alfred Hitchcock) and other aspects of popular culture. This project’s contribution and uniqueness lie with the way it applies theory to these particular literary works, specifically concerning gender relations and the prevalence of androgyny in widely read works by well-known authors in two very different literary and historical eras. My interpretation of these two novels provides an evaluation of historical and contemporary patriarchal norms and a radical potentiality for subverting the idea of static gender roles that has remained prevalent throughout the three centuries of these texts’ existence.