She later served stints as director of the Helen Suzman Foundation and as a member of the Electoral Commission of South Africa.
Though Taljaard was widely viewed as among the DA's most promising politicians, Leon had to intervene to secure her place on the party list in the 2004 general election.
Her relationship with Leon and other senior DA leaders deteriorated thereafter, and in November 2004 she announced her resignation from the party, from Parliament, and from frontline politics.
She was director of the Helen Suzman Foundation from 2006 to 2009 and served half a term at the Electoral Commission from 2011 until 2015, when she resigned to concentrate on her academic career.
[6][7] In August 2000, when the Democratic Alliance (DA) was established as an opposition coalition between the DP and New National Party, Leon appointed Taljaard as shadow minister for public enterprises.
[9] Despite holding this senior post in the DA, Taljaard had opposed the formation of the coalition, which was generally viewed as a step to the right of the DP.
[9] In January 2001,[11] the DA appointed her to a seat in the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA), where she became the party's main spokesperson on the Arms Deal and related investigations.
[14][15] In early March, Woods was replaced by the ANC's Vincent Smith – the first SCOPA chairperson ever to come from the governing party, in a break with tradition – and Taljaard resigned soon afterwards.
[23] While she was in this role, at the end of 2003, the Mail & Guardian named her as one of twenty people in politics who "will emerge as key figures in our public life over the next 10 years".
[5] In January 2004, as the 2004 general election approached, a provisional draft of the DA's party list was leaked which showed Taljaard ranked in an unelectable position: 32nd in the Gauteng caucus.
[2] The Mail & Guardian said that after her departure, the DA "battled... to make a meaningful contribution to economic debate in the National Assembly;[31] writing in the same newspaper, Richard Calland said that her resignation reflected poorly on the trajectory of the party, which he condemned as "apparently so caught up in their own hubris that they were unable to accommodate someone of Taljaard’s abilities".
[29] The party strongly denied widespread rumours that Taljaard's resignation was in fact the result of infighting in the DA, including disagreements between her and Gibson.
[29][34][35] In 2011, Taljaard said that her resignation had been "an important moment of personal authenticity after a clear dissonance between my inner being and the harsh and in my view dysfunctional and war-like hostile tone of our public discourse during this time".
[16] Taljaard described her uneasiness about having returned to Parliament in 2004 through Leon's preferment, which she thought might carry the presumption of "unquestioning loyalty" to him, and she said that her personal relationship with Leon had grown tense after she shared with him her concerns that he was leading the party while "isolated and cloistered in a bubble with his male entourage, who acted as echo chambers for each other's belief systems".
[5] In the book, Taljaard quotes her resignation letter as having read, "Allow me to clarify again: my reasons for departing relate primarily to the DA, key personalities within it and their respective roles, and not to the ANC".
[35] While leading the Helen Suzman Foundation, Taljaard continued to lecture part-time at Wits,[34][3] and in August 2007 she was additionally appointed to the board of the Public Investment Corporation.