Forty-five state legislatures will convene 2023 sessions by Jan. 18, with 35 doing so on or before Jan. 11—including 18 this week.
By the time deliberations conclude in December, the nation’s 7,383 state lawmakers will introduce on average a collective 110,000 bills—250,000 across two-year biennium sessions—and adopt more than 30,000 new laws and regulations.
While cable TV networks and digital sites near-exclusively focus on national issues being debated in Washington, the real action in adopting policies, imposing regulations, and making decisions that affect Americans’ day-to-day lives occurs in state capitols during annual legislative sessions.
According to an analysis by Quorum States, a Washington bill-tracking service, state legislatures introduce 23 times more bills than Congress does annually. The average state lawmaker either sponsors or signs onto 33 bills, with about four being adopted each session….