I agree with your definition of "effective". I disagree with your conclusion for a litany of reasons. The Volden, Wiseman paper does not contradict me. Volden and wiseman seem to say just that. First, you compare those few legislators who survived 30 years to all freshmen. What I mean is, there were 25 senators elected in 1988. Only four remain. You compare those to all if the 25 freshmen elected in 2012. And use this to assert a direction of causation: staying a long time makes a senator better. In fact, it is the better legislators that remain. Staying 30 years didn't make them good, being good allowed them to stay 30 years. Moreover, you don't distinguish between the superstars and plow horses in either category. If there are 25 freshmen and five long-tenure senators, and a bill has the fingerprints if five of the former and two of the latter, your conclusion is that long serving senators are better because they have a 40% chance of being involved in major legislation, and freshman have only 20% chance, even though the freshman did most of the heavy lifting.

Also, you ignore the fact that legislative rules favor veterans. So the rules, which have absolutely nothing to do with a Reoresentative's ability, say that veterans get better committe assignments, and you say this means the veterans are more effective. This is circular logic. You don't establish that if the rules changed that veterans would still get those assignments. This is like saying 65 year old people are better at being retired that 55 year old people because most of the good retiring is done by older people.

Also, in order to sustain your position that veterans are required to pass important legislation, you would have to assert that if we had term limits, no or little important legislation would pass. We know that's not true because we see ad hoc groups accomplish extraordinary things outside government with it's rules that artificially constrain newcomers. Civil rights movement. MLK did not have any relationship with the major players before the bus boycott. There were no veterans in the fight. Only freshmen activist. And they got the equivalent of major legislation. We built Liberty ships without leaders with years of tenure. NASA. The Sierra Club. The reason for this is that it is not necessary to be a civil rights leader, or a shipbuilder, for thirty years to be a good one. Being a clergyman (MLK, Malcolm X) or law student (Thurgood Marshall) is at least as good as preparation.

And, you ignore the fact that many veterans are buffoons. For every Ted Kennedy or Strom Thurmond, who had their fingerprints on important legislation after 30 years, there are several ellensers and eastlands who didn't have their fingerprints on anything more significant than a barbecued sparerib, in spite of being president of the senate and chairman of the judiciary committee. 35 years didn't help them.