This is a story about legislative design – how the structure of democratic institutions can affect the behavior of their members and ultimately the policies that they produce. It focuses on one specific aspect of design, defined here as the set of rules governing a democratic body's composition and operation. This is the answer to a question that needs to be asked whenever a polity designs (or redesigns) its legislature: Whom do we want our leaders to be? Should they be part-time lawmakers who take a turn in government and then rejoin the populace? Or should they be professionals who make governing their permanent career?

Once this question is answered, the answer must somehow be enforced. Two key aspects of a legislature's design can serve to lock in a polity's decisions about the nature of its leaders. The most direct mechanism is to place a formal limit on the number of terms for which representatives may serve. The Athenians did this, and Aristotle argued explicitly for term limits that placed “All over each and each in turn over all.” Venice's Ducal Councillors were term-limited, and America's first Congress under the Articles of Confederation included a provision requiring “rotation in office” (Petracca, 1992).

Another way to enforce a decision is to provide legislators with the resources to make politics their professional career or to deny them this ability. Senators in the Roman Republic had to leave their previous jobs and work as full-time legislators (Abbott, 1902).