The U.S. legislative process is a relentless machine. While it might seem like there's more political action than ever, the truth is—this happens every year. In fact, during the 2023-2024 legislative sessions alone, over 254,000 bills were introduced across 51 legislatures.
That’s a ton of proposed laws. But what’s really going on behind the scenes? Why do some states introduce way more bills than others? And what does all of this actually mean for you?
Let’s break it down.
1️⃣ New York Introduces More Bills Than Congress—By A Lot
You’d think the U.S. Congress would be the most active in introducing bills, right? Nope. That honor goes to New York with a staggering 24,195 bills introduced in just two years.
On the other hand, Alaska, Wyoming, and North Dakota introduce the fewest bills—hovering between 791 and 1,006 total. The gap between the highest and lowest bill counts is astounding.
Why the difference? It mostly comes down to resourcing, session length and rules.
2️⃣ Full-Time Legislators Introduce More Bills—But Only to a Point
Common sense says that full-time legislatures (with better staffing and longer sessions) would introduce more bills. And that’s mostly true.
🔹 More staff → More bills
🔹 More full-time representatives → More bills (but with diminishing returns)
🔹 More legislative days → More bills
🔹 More representatives → Slightly more bills
However, there’s a limit. More staffing and longer sessions don’t always mean more legislation—the Hybrid type of legislature (according to the NCSL) actually saw the largest bump in bills introduced in our modeling (see chart below).
3️⃣ The “Single-Subject Rule” Creates More Bills
Some states require that each bill only covers one issue—a law known as the Single-Subject Rule. While this sounds logical, it actually increases the number of bills.
States with the Single-Subject Rule introduce 60% MORE bills than states without it.
Why? Instead of stuffing multiple policy changes into one bill, lawmakers have to introduce separate pieces of legislation for each issue. More paperwork, more bills.
4️⃣ Bill Limits Don’t Really Work
Some states limit the number of bills a legislator can introduce. Sounds like a good way to prevent legislative bloat, right?
Well, it doesn’t really work as intended.
Our analysis shows that bill limits have no statistically significant impact on the total number of bills introduced. Lawmakers find a way, which could mean:
✔ Process loopholes (co-sponsoring bills instead of introducing them)
✔ Bundle similar subject bills together into larger, more complex bills
✔ Push legislative priorities through other means (like shell bills, amendments, and sandbagging)
So while the idea of “capping” bills sounds practical, the real-world effect is minimal at best. However, these rules are complicated to compare state-to-state, so our over-simplification in modeling them may not do them justice.
5️⃣ Party Control Doesn’t Affect How Many Bills Get Introduced
Republicans and Democrats might fight over policies, but their legislators introduce about the same number of bills.
Conventional expectations suggest that certain parties make more rules than others, but our analysis showed that party domination of the state doesn’t significantly impact legislative output (as measured by both % of control and who held the majority in the legislature).
This suggests that the rules and structure of the legislature (staffing, deadlines, single-subject requirements) matter more than the political party in power.
Final Thoughts: The Lawmaking Machine Never Stops → Keeping Up Feels Impossible (Without Help)
Every year, hundreds of thousands of bills are introduced across the U.S., with some states moving at lightning speed and others taking a slower approach. Whether you're in a legislative powerhouse like New York or Texas, or in a state that produces fewer bills, the sheer volume can be overwhelming—especially when you care about specific issues.
If you’re not actively tracking legislation every day, its easy to miss major changes that affect your business, organization, or daily life.
🔹 The Solution? Automated legislative scorecards and AI tools that help you stay on top of the most relevant bills without drowning in legal jargon.
Need Help Tracking Legislation?
Stay informed without the stress—our AI-powered tools make it easy to track critical legislative updates and never miss a beat. From automated tracking tools to AI-powered bill summaries, we help you keep up with critical legislative updates.
Sourcing / Acknowledgements:
This article is based on the data from the below sources and analysis conducted by Civicly Envolved Inc, including a linear regression analysis.
The linear regression consisted was:
- The natural log of total_bills introduced, given independent variables for each state on total_days_in_session, state_gdp, state_rep_count, state_party_control, state_party_control_percent, state_legislative_full_time_level, state_legislative_full_time_level_squared, single_subject_rule, bill_limits_binary, bill_pre_filing_deadlines, and bill_introduction_deadline
The data sources were:
- National Association of State Legislators, Staffing Levels
- National Association of State Legislators, Full- and Part-time
- Legiscan for bill counts, legislative days and party control
- NBER for GDP
- US Census for Population
- Other variables manually researched by Civicly Enovled Inc