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The State Legislative Decade
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The State Legislative Decade report presents new data and analysis of trends in enacted legislation in all 50 states.
The report is based on a dataset of 243,529 bills adopted from January 2011 to May 2024 and includes an analysis of trends in the number of bills adopted in each state and the partisan sponsorship of that legislation. The dataset does not include resolutions.
Because there are so many factors that may affect the number of bills passed in an individual state, the focus of the analysis is on trends and takeaways related to the partisan sponsorship of this legislation. For more on variables that affect the number of bills adopted in each state, see below.
Navigate through the report by clicking below:
- Edge cases and about the dataset
- Topline numbers
- Trifecta analysis
- Total enacted bills
- State-by-state breakdown
- Acknowledgements
Edge cases and about the dataset
Before going further, it is worthwhile to highlight some unique state factors and features of the dataset that affect the analysis and takeaways presented here.
Edge cases
In four states, the vast majority of passed bills do not have partisan sponsorship. These are Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, and Nebraska.
Nebraska has a unicameral, nonpartisan legislature. Although some legislation has attributed partisan sponsorship, 94.5% of the 1,782 bills included in this analysis do not have partisan sponsorship.
Iowa, Idaho, and Kansas all have partisan legislatures, but legislation without partisan sponsorship made up more than 90% of all passed bills in all three states.
Four other states—Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and Texas—do not hold legislative sessions in even years.
These aspects of individual state's legislative processes have an effect on certain elements of this report, including the overall rate of partisan sponsorship of enacted bills, as well as the number of bills enacted per year.
About the dataset
Apart from the idiosyncrasies of individual legislatures, the dataset also presents some challenges that affect the analysis that follows. These are:
The dataset assigns a year to each enacted bill based on the last action reported by each legislature for that bill. This means that data reported for each year do not correspond directly to legislative sessions but only to the number of enacted bills with a last action date in each given year. For roughly 2.4% of bills in the dataset, the last action date is null. The reasons why a last action reported by a legislature may have a null date differ from state to state but are largely due to unique reporting procedures, or even errors, in each legislatures' record of bills.
This fraction of bills is therefore excluded from any analysis of enacted bills in the report that breaks down actions by year. These bills are, however, included in the overall breakdown of partisan sponsorship across the dataset.
Separately, in Montana, only the primary sponsor of a bill is recorded and provided in a format accessible online. This means that the true rate of bipartisan sponsorship is likely slightly higher than reported here, and data for Montana in the state-by-state breakdown shows only the primary sponsorship of enacted legislation, rather than cosponsorship. Montana accounts for 4,211 pieces of legislation in the dataset.
Finally, while the dataset is nearly a total record of enacted bills from 2011 to present, data for some states, especially in the early years of this period, is either not accessible or incomplete. See the state-by-state breakdown below for more.
Topline numbers
Legislation solely sponsored by Republican lawmakers made up a plurality of all state legislation adopted between January 2011 and May 2024. In total, states adopted 243,529 bills during this period, 89,395 (36.7%) of which were sponsored solely by Republicans.
The next largest share of bills were those with bipartisan sponsorship (72,902, 29.9%), followed by Democratic-sponsored (55,813, 22.9%), and, finally, legislation with other sponsorship (25,419, 10.4%). This last category mainly consists of legislation introduced without partisan sponsorship, such as by a committee or a nonpartisan lawmaker. Read more about edge cases here.
Trifecta analysis
A majority (55.2%) of bills in states with a Republican trifecta had Republican sponsorship, while legislation with Democratic sponsorship (50.8%) made up a majority of new laws in states with Democratic trifectas. In states with divided governments, bills with bipartisan sponsorship (36%) made up the largest share. This indicates that Republicans are more successful at advancing partisan legislative priorities while in control of state governments than Democrats are, and it suggests that divided government encourages bipartisan lawmaking.
Crossover legislation, or enacted legislation that has partisan sponsorship from the minority party in a state with a trifecta, was more common in states with Republican trifectas. Democrats sponsored 7.8% of all adopted legislation in states with a Republican trifecta, while Republicans sponsored 5.8% of new laws enacted in states with a Democratic trifecta. This suggests that Democratic lawmakers were more successful than their Republican counterparts at advancing their legislative priorities when in the minority. However, Republican-sponsored legislation made up a larger share (32.6%) of approved bills in states with divided governments than Democratic-sponsored legislation (24.6%) did, demonstrating that Republican lawmakers are more successful at advancing partisan legislation when in a divided government.
Legislation with bipartisan legislation made up a larger portion of adopted legislation in Democratic trifectas (33.9%) than in states with Republican trifectas (22.5%). Bipartisan legislation in states with divided government was a similar portion of the overall total as in states with Democratic trifectas.
Finally, there are some notable trends in the share of bipartisan-sponsored legislation in each type of trifecta over the years covered by the dataset. In states with Democratic trifectas, the share of bipartisan legislation has increased since 2020, while the share of Republican-sponsored legislation has dropped. In Republican trifectas, the share of bipartisan legislation has been trending downward since reaching a high of 34.1% in 2013. In states with divided government, the share of bipartisan legislation dropped sharply after 2020 and, in 2024, the share is less than half of four years earlier. See below for a breakdown of the sponsorship of adopted legislation in each type of trifecta.
Democratic trifectas
Republican trifectas
Divided governments
Total enacted bills
Some states pass a much larger number of bills each year than others. It is important to note that the large differences in the number of bills passed do not mean that the legislatures passing more bills are necessarily more productive, or even doing more work. Each legislature operates under a different set of rules and procedures that affect the number of bills passed. Some states tend to combine individual bills into legislative packages that will reduce the overall number of bills passed, while others pass local laws through the state legislature, increasing the quantity of legislation both considered and adopted.
Two states, Tennessee and Texas, passed an average of more than 1,000 bills per year. Tennessee passed an average of 2,130 bills per year, nearly doubling Texas’ rate of 1,249 bills.
In an average year in Tennessee, Republicans sponsored 75.8% of passed legislation, Democrats sponsored 11.6%, 11.8% had bipartisan sponsorship, and the remainder did not have partisan sponsorship. In Texas, Republicans sponsored 38.4%, Democrats sponsored 13.7%, while 47.6% of adopted legislation had bipartisan sponsorship, and the remainder did not have partisan sponsorship.
Other states that adopted a high number of bills per year include California (991 bills per year), Virginia (918), Louisiana (819), Maryland (745), Nevada (682), Arkansas (647), New York (630), and Montana (603).
On the other end of the spectrum, states that passed the fewest number of bills per year were: Ohio (97), Missouri (77), and Alaska (76).
The mean number of bills passed per year was 325. The states closest to the mean were Alabama (328 bills per year) and Arizona (317).
State-by-state breakdown
This section includes a breakdown of legislation in all 50 states in all the years for which Ballotpedia has complete data. Click on a state below to navigate to that state's data.
- Alabama
- Alaska
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- Nevada
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
Acknowledgements
The dataset that is the basis for this analysis was compiled by BillTrack50, a provider of legislative data in all 50 states and Congress and a Ballotpedia partner. Working with a dataset of nearly a quarter million pieces of legislation, across 50 different states, and over an extended time period, necessarily presents challenges. BillTrack50’s comprehensive record of bill sponsorship, votes, and other legislative data makes tackling these challenge feasible.
