Well, if that's your definition of "diversity"

A new study by the National Conference of State Legislatures claims to show that legislative term limits "have not led to the new breed of diverse, citizen legislators proponents expected." From the AP:

Between 1995 and 2004, the only term-limited assemblies with an increase in the number of women were California and South Dakota. In a majority of states with term limits, the number of female lawmakers decreased, the report said.

Open seats caused by term limits did clear the way for an increase in Hispanic lawmakers in California, Florida and Arizona, and for blacks in Michigan and Arkansas.

But the report's authors argue that the increase in minority representation mirrors demographic trends in those states.

"No systematic differences exist in the number of racial and ethnic minorities in the term-limited legislatures versus non-limited legislatures," the report stated.

That may be interesting information, but the principal goal behind term limits was never to increase the numbers of women and minorities elected to state legislatures. Fortunately, voters aren't restrained by quotas, regardless of how much the nation's cultural elites would like them to be. Instead, term limits were intended to ensure that legislatures would continually get an influx of new blood, thereby reducing the influence of so-called "career politicians" on the legislative process. Whether term limits have succeeded in that objective is a different question entirely, and determining the answer will involve more than simply counting up the number of women and minorities in the room.

If anyone cared to look, my guess is that they would find that term-limited legislatures are more diverse in terms of legislators' ages, backgrounds, and possibly even ideology, than those which operate without term limits. Of course, those aren't the things that liberals mean when they talk about "diversity," so they aren't interested in them. For the diversocrats, it all comes down to race and sex: there is nothing more important. With that kind of philosophy, it's no wonder they have such a dim and humorless view of the world.