2025 Governors and Legislatures (Projected)
image/svg+xml Skip to main content
Search image/svg+xml
Home
/
Insider
/
•••

Key Takeaways:

  • By our count, lawmakers across all 50 states introduced 246,405 bills over the 2023-24 legislative sessions, with numbers increasing every year. 
  • New York is still far and away the most prolific bill-introducing legislature in the country, followed by Massachusetts, Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
  • On the other end of the spectrum, Alaska lawmakers introduced the fewest bills. 
  • Some states limit the number of bills each lawmaker may introduce, such as California's new rule capping the total number of bills legislators are allowed to introduced during each two-year session.

By our count, lawmakers across all 50 states introduced 246,405 bills over the 2023-24 legislative sessions — compared to 242,657 during 2019-20 and 239,365 in 2017-18.

States That Introduce the Most and Least Bills

New York is still far and away the most prolific bill-introducing legislature in the country. New York lawmakers introduced 24,284 bills in 2023-24.  Joining New York in the five-digit club are Massachusetts (16,670), Texas (13,092), Illinois (12,375), Minnesota (11,146), Oklahoma (11,082), and Tennessee (10,139). On the other end of the spectrum, Alaska lawmakers introduced the fewest bills (812) this last session with even the Dakotas and Wyoming lawmakers cracking 1,000 bills introduced this time around. 


State Efforts to Limit Bill Introduction

The good news is that some states limit the number of bills each lawmaker may introduce. In fact, California legislative leaders will implement a new rule decreasing the number of bills members of the Senate (from 40 to 35) and Assembly (from 50-35) may introduce during each two-year session. This rule alone should bring down the number of bills in California next session. If each lawmaker introduces the maximum number of bills allowed (35) then we’d only see 4,200 bills introduced, down slightly from the 5,564 introduced this last session. 

Sign Up for Morning MultiState

This article appeared in our Morning MultiState newsletter on December 10, 2024. For more timely insights like this, be sure to sign up for our Morning MultiState weekly morning tipsheet. We created Morning MultiState with state government affairs professionals in mind — sign up to receive the latest from our experts in your inbox every Tuesday morning. Click here to sign up.