So you are looking at a bill. You hate it, you think it’s terrible, you think it’s trouble if it passes. Or you love it, it’s a great idea, you think it could make a really big difference. You really hope it will pass. But it’s in a state you aren’t that familiar with, and you don’t know the players. How can you guess if it’s going to pass? Well,the best thing is to know who sponsored it, how much support it has, what the mood in the state is overall, and ideally, to have a crystal ball.
Or, barring that, you can see how far the bill has gotten in the process so far. In general the process a bill goes through to get passed is: a bill is introduced, is read on the floor, goes to a committee or two, maybe is amended, is read on the floor again and voted on, crosses to the other chamber, rinse, repeat. But different states have different rules, and report differing amounts of information, so the path from a bill to a law can be really short or incredibly long.
Here’s a look at the minimum number of actions it takes to pass a bill, and also how many actions, on average, it takes to pass a bill. I also added with the average actions of an unpassed bill for comparison. You’ll see the states vary widely, but usually there’s a big gap between the average number of actions for a bill that passed vs one that didn’t. Except in New Mexico, which is an oddity.
For most states there’s a threshold, a number of actions, above which a bill will most likely pass. Of course it’s still better to actually know the politics of the situation, but barring that, the action count can let you know if the bill has the momentum it needs. Keep in mind having a small number of actions doesn’t mean a bill *won’t* pass, since things may still happen. But having a large number of actions can be a good indicator a bill *will* pass. What’s a large number? Of course that’s different for every state. See the table below for details:
| State | Avg Actions, Unpassed Bill | Avg Actions, Passed Bill | Min Actions To Pass | Actions to have 50% chance of passing | Actions to have 80% chance of passing |
| AK | 13 | 42 | 6 | 21 | 84 |
| AL | 3 | 18 | 9 | 3 | 10 |
| AR | 5 | 19 | 12 | 1 | 6 |
| AZ | 9 | 32 | 13 | 8 | 26 |
| CA | 9 | 26 | 11 | 11 | 18 |
| CO | 4 | 13 | 8 | 1 | 7 |
| CT | 5 | 24 | 8 | 16 | 30 |
| DE | 3 | 9 | 5 | 2 | 5 |
| FL | 10 | 27 | 3 | 29 | |
| GA | 2 | 14 | 11 | 3 | 7 |
| HI | 8 | 44 | 4 | 22 | 42 |
| IA | 4 | 24 | 12 | 7 | |
| ID | 11 | 30 | 21 | 1 | 14 |
| IL | 10 | 50 | 25 | 28 | |
| IN | 4 | 29 | 17 | 6 | 13 |
| KS | 7 | 26 | 11 | 8 | |
| KY | 6 | 24 | 16 | 9 | 18 |
| LA | 5 | 21 | 14 | 7 | 14 |
| MA | 6 | 16 | 5 | ||
| MD | 4 | 18 | 13 | 3 | 9 |
| ME | 8 | 22 | 7 | 7 | 37 |
| MI | 4 | 30 | 3 | 5 | 14 |
| MN | 5 | 45 | 3 | 16 | 121 |
| MO | 7 | 38 | 19 | 22 | 80 |
| MS | 3 | 16 | 11 | 7 | 12 |
| MT | 29 | 52 | 38 | 24 | 37 |
| NC | 7 | 25 | 14 | 13 | 25 |
| ND | 7 | 17 | 13 | 1 | 10 |
| NE | 4 | 18 | 10 | 5 | 7 |
| NH | 13 | 25 | 8 | 21 | |
| NJ | 2 | 11 | 7 | 7 | 16 |
| NM | 6 | 5 | 1 | 11 | |
| NV | 8 | 19 | 2 | 10 | 18 |
| NY | 2 | 15 | 11 | 3 | 23 |
| OH | 2 | 15 | 8 | 7 | 10 |
| OK | 6 | 27 | 15 | 8 | 32 |
| OR | 5 | 21 | 16 | 11 | 17 |
| PA | 2 | 24 | 20 | 3 | 14 |
| RI | 3 | 12 | 2 | 10 | 8 |
| SC | 3 | 22 | 11 | 3 | 21 |
| SD | 5 | 17 | 11 | 7 | 8 |
| TN | 8 | 17 | 8 | 21 | 23 |
| TX | 9 | 47 | 5 | 18 | |
| US | 3 | 28 | 9 | 8 | |
| UT | 13 | 36 | 14 | 9 | 22 |
| VA | 9 | 30 | 19 | 5 | 18 |
| VT | 3 | 43 | 13 | 14 | 55 |
| WA | 9 | 31 | 15 | 14 | 26 |
| WI | 7 | 37 | 14 | 14 | 22 |
| WV | 6 | 43 | 32 | 10 | 20 |
| WY | 14 | 25 | 14 |
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