Senators serve a four-year term and are limited to three terms or 12 years. A term-limited member can not run for election to the House of Representative as both representative terms and senate terms are added together in determining the total number of legislative years in office. When term limits were implemented in 1992, they were not applied retroactively, which meant that senators elected prior to their implementation could serve up to three full terms following the implementation of term limits. For example, the longest-serving member of the Oklahoma State Senate, Gene Stipe was first elected in 1956, but would not have been term limited out until after the 2004 election, had he not resigned the previous year.