ORONO – When Maine voters approved term limits in a 1993 referendum designed to replace what some considered professional politicians with more rank-and-file citizens, they set into motion a series of related changes with some unanticipated consequences.

Voters interrupted or ended some lengthy political careers, but some feel it is clear more than a decade later that voters also diminished the political power and efficiency of the Maine Legislature.

Three current or former University of Maine political science professors are authors of a newly published book, “Changing Members: The Maine Legislature in the Era of Term Limits,” Lexington Books, 2004, which assesses the effects of term limits in Maine.

The collaborators are Richard J. Powell, assistant professor of political science; Kenneth T. Palmer, professor emeritus and former chairman of the department of political science; and Matthew C. Moen, former professor and chairman of the political science department and now dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Dakota. The book takes a nonpartisan look at the impact of term limits.

It is an analysis based primarily on a survey of members of the Maine Legislature, plus several dozen interviews with legislators, staff, executive branch officials and lobbyists. The authors each have published articles or books on a variety of political science issues, including Congress, the presidency, federalism and Maine politics.

The research is particularly significant, the authors note, because Maine is the first state in the nation where term limits actually forced members out of both chambers of its state legislature. Lessons from Maine may be applicable to the other 16 states operating under term limits.

One of those lessons is that term limits can easily “gum up the works,” Palmer says of the tendency for the Legislature to operate less efficiently under the restrictions.

Unless a Maine legislator switches chambers or sits out an election cycle, a member is ineligible to run for re-election after serving four consecutive terms in the Maine House or Senate. This keeps new and largely inexperienced faces coming and going in Augusta, with what Powell calls “unintended consequences.”

One of those consequences is an abbreviated learning curve for new legislators, who must very quickly learn their way around the institution.

They need to make a mark – particularly if they have leadership ambitions.

They sometimes are impatient with the give-and-take of the legislative process.

“Changing Members: The Maine Legislature in the Era of Term Limits” is available through Amazon.com.