A few years ago I looked at how many bills various states introduce and pass, and was surprised to see how different different states can be. That has been the basic theme of Political Eye Candy ever since. I’ve had a few requests to update those numbers so I thought I’d take a look and see if anything has changed.
Let’s start with how much legislation been introduced in 2015:
This map includes both bills and resolutions, but it’s interesting to look at those separately. First, resolutions:
And now here’s just bills:
Now let’s look at how many bills and resolutions have actually passed so far this year (a very different map). Keep in mind CA, DE, MA, MI, NH, NY, NC, OR, PA, RI, WV, WI are all still in session, though most just for a couple more weeks.
Notice how much smaller the differences are between the states when we look at passed versus introduced. And now let’s look a just bills passed:
Again keep in mind CA, DE, MA, MI, NH, NY, NC, OR, PA, RI, WV, WI are all still in session, though most just for a couple more weeks. Indeed, it might be helpful to see the status of all legislation, by state, to get some context:
What probably jumps out at you is how many bills in NY have been introduced but haven’t gotten any further, and how many bills are stuck in committee in IL and NJ. Also notice Congress is included as US — and shows nearly no bills passed at all.
Finally, let’s look at the percentage of legislation passed in each state, as of June 2015:
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