Which state legislatures are the most conservative? Which are the most progressive? Here is the ranking

Alabama is the state with the most conservative legislature in the country. This is one of the conclusions of the report put together by the Center for Legislative Accountability (CLA), published by The Hill newspaper. On the opposite side of the list is Massachusetts.

Massachusetts has the most left-leaning legislators

Alabama is followed on the list of the most conservative states by Tennessee, Indiana, South Dakota, and Arkansas. Rounding out the top ten list are Florida, Idaho, Wyoming, Iowa, and West Virginia. All of them have Republican governors.

By contrast, the state with the most progressive legislature is Massachusetts. It is followed, in order, by Hawaii, Rhode Island, California and Maryland. They are followed by Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Oregon.

186 categories

The list is compiled by the Center for Legislative Accountability (CLA) from 186 categories of political issues, (abortion, taxes, crime...), which serve to gauge the extent to which legislators in each state lean toward one side or the other of the ideological scale.

The report is based on how often lawmakers voted conservative. Alabama legislators voted for conservative positions 74% of the time in 2021. Lawmakers in Massachusetts voted conservative 15% of the time.

Greater difference between parties in 2021

There are 3,906 Republican legislators, and they voted conservatively 80.8% of the time in 2021. In the case of the 3,223 Democratic legislators, they did so only 15.9% of the time. This means that the gap between the two major parties is growing. In 2021 there was a 64.9-point difference, compared to the 57.7 point difference in 2020.  Republicans voted conservative 76.4% of the time that year, while Democrats did so only 18.7% of the time.

The first state on the list of most to least conservative (or least to most progressive) legislatures with a Democratic governor is Kentucky. Andy Beshear will serve as governor until 2023. New elections will be held in November of that year. If we go to the most progressive states, the first with a Republican governor is Massachusetts, which is also the state with the most progressive lawmakers in the country. Maryland is next.

The list

This is the complete list of states by percentage of conservative vote.

1. Alabama
2. Tennessee
3. Indiana
4. South Dakota
5. Arkansas
6. Florida
7. Idaho
8. Wyoming
9. Iowa
10. West Virginia
11. Oklahoma
12. Ohio
13. Mississippi
14. Kentucky
15. North Carolina
16. Georgia
17. North Dakota
18. Kansas
19. Utah
20. Louisiana
21. Missouri
22. Nebraska
23. Wisconsin
24. Montana
25. Michigan
26. Texas
27. South Carolina
28. Pennsylvania
29. Arizona
30. New Hampshire
31. Alaska
32. Virginia
33. Minnesota
34. Maine
35. Washington
36. Illinois
37. New Mexico
38. Delaware
39. Colorado
40. Nevada
41. Oregon
42. Connecticut
43. New Jersey
44. New York
45. Vermont
46. Maryland
47. California
48. Rhode Island
49. Hawaii
50. Massachusetts