America’s rapidly aging population will mean new challenges for taxpayers. The projections for federal programs such as Social Security or Medicare are scary, and don’t forget the impact on state and local government. Budgets that already are precarious could become even more strained as these demographic trends affect state and local taxes, government’s obligations and the economy. This conference was held on Friday, February 22, 2008, at the UIC Forum in Chicago.

Public opinion polls consistently show that Americans view health care as a major social issue heading into the 2008 presidential election. One recent poll indicates that even young voters, those between 18 and 30, consider health care to be the second-most important issue confronting the nation.

2007 brought unprecedented politi-cal gridlock to Illinois state government, reducing public satisfaction with the governor and General Assembly dramatically, and gen-erating serious discussion about a draconian political reform that dates from the Progres-sive Era – the recall of elected officials. Only one state has adopted the recall since the 1920s, Minnesota in 1996. But since 1990, almost half the states have adopted a more invasive and significant institutional reform with a similar populist appeal – state legisla-tive term limits.

After an unusually swift reform movement in the 1990s, 15 states are now adjusting to the most significant institutional change in state government in a generation—legislative term limits. Beyond presenting political scientists with the basic task of identifying and cataloging its wide variety of substantive impacts, this reform provides scholars with an unprecedented opportunity to test and extend legislative theory. Most legislative theory is supported by behavioral assumptions that term limits appear to threaten.