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State Legislatures facts

While investigating facts about State Legislatures By Party and State Legislatures By Party 2019, I found out little known, but curios details like:

During the 1920s a class president candidate at Harvard swallowed a live goldfish in a bid to win more votes. The stunt created a trend of 'goldfish swallowing' which became so popular that eventually Massachusetts state legislature had to create a bill banning it

how state legislatures are similar to and different from congress?

Disney has its own Gorvernment. The company petitioned the Florida State Legislature to let them govern its own land. In 1967, the statutes were signed and the Reedy Creek Improvement District was born. Disney have almost total autonomy within its border.

What state legislatures have term limits?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what is the main purpose of state legislatures. Here are 50 of the best facts about State Legislatures Definition and State Legislatures Magazine I managed to collect.

what state legislatures are in session?

  1. In 2000, the Missouri chapter of the KKK won a court battle to allow them to participate in the Adopt-a-Highway program. The state legislature promptly renamed the stretch of I-55 they were assigned to clean as the “Rosa Parks Highway”

  2. The amendment to the Constitution granting women the vote was passed by only one vote. Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the Amendment, and it passed the legislature when Harry Burn, a young legislator, changed his vote to "yes" after receiving a letter from his mother.

  3. Aaron Burr believed women to be intellectually equal to men and, upon his election to the New York State Legislature, submitted a bill to allow women to vote.

  4. A group of Oregon lawmakers rickrolled the state legislature in 2011. Each person incorporated one line into their speech.

  5. The Twenty-seventh Amendment was ratified after an undergraduate student at Texas University wrote a paper on the amendment. His instructor gave him a 'C' calling his idea "unrealistic". The student then started a letter writing campaign to State Legislatures to get it passed.

  6. In 1996, the legislature of New Mexico adopted an official state question: "Red or green?" It refers to the question always asked whether one prefers red or green chile when ordering New Mexican cuisine.

  7. In 1994, when the Ku Klux Klan applied to sponsor a portion of United States Interstate 55 in Missouri which allowed them to have signs stating the sponsorship, since the state could not legally refuse it, the Missouri legislature voted to name the highway section the "Rosa Parks Highway".

  8. A city councilman convinced a crane operator to lift a car 200 feet onto an uncompleted section of CA freeway in order to embarrass the state legislature for its budget mismanagement. It worked, they soon approved the funds and completed the interchange.

  9. In a 1978 Tennessee state legislature race, one candidate murdered his opponent. Because he was not convicted before the election, his name had to remain on the ballot while his victim's was removed, leading the murdered candidate's widow to run a successful write-in campaign.

  10. In 1977 the mayor of Vulcan,WV requested foreign aid from the Soviet Union and East Germany to replace the town's bridge after unsuccessful efforts to get the state to replace it. Within an hour aft a Russian journalist visited the town, the state legislature approved funds for the bridge.

state legislatures facts
What are state legislatures?

State Legislatures data charts

For your convenience take a look at State Legislatures figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.

state legislatures fact data chart about Remember Local Elections. State Legislature by Party Majorit
Remember Local Elections. State Legislature by Party Majority Percentage

state legislatures fact data chart about Visualization of all American state legislatures with propor
Visualization of all American state legislatures with proportional representation and unicameralism

Why was the state legislatures action allowed by the us constitution?

You can easily fact check why are state legislatures bicameral by examining the linked well-known sources.

In response to a Tennessee State Legislature bill that prohibited schools from alluding to the existence of gays, George Takei offered up his name, suggesting that people could just substitute Takei for 'gay'. For example, supporting Takei Marriage or using slurs like That's so Takei.

Thomas Jefferson allowed two of his children by Sally Hemings, Beverly and Harriet, to escape slavery at Monticello in 1822 because legally freeing them would be a public affair that involved the state legislature. Due to their light skin, both were able to assimilate into white society. - source

There is a clause in the U.S. Constitution that allows state legislatures to pass a constitutional amendment without Congress. It's called an Article V Convention, and has never been used. - source

In 2004 the Town of Killington, Vermont attempted to secede from Vermont and join New Hampshire, despite being separated by 25 miles of other Vermont towns. The town twice voted to secede, but the State Legislature passed laws making their secession more expensive than remaining in Vermont.

John Milton, the Confederate governor of Florida, having told the state legislature that "death would be preferable to reunion" in his final speech, shot himself in the head a few days before Lee's surrender at Appomattox - source

When state legislatures concentrate the members of one party?

Arkansas was pronounced Ar-ken-saw and Ar-kan-zes until 1881 when state legislature decided the official pronunciation would be Ar-ken-saw.

How state legislatures work?

In 2008, a Mexican state legislature implemented a surprise drug test for all state lawmakers coming to work to prove if they were clean. The lawmakers nearly trampled over each other trying to reach the door

Mississippi was the first state to pass Black Codes when its legislature passed "An Act to Confer Civil Rights on Freedmen." Despite the name, it was extremely harsh and practically made it impossible for blacks to own land in the country and to be independent farmers.

The infamous murder case of the Black Dahlia was the catalyst for California to become the first state to introduce a legislature for there to be a registration for sex offenders

Johnson began his political career in the Tennessee state legislature and although not initially a member of a party, he eventually became an ardent Jacksonian Democrat.

Martin Van Buren, admirer of Napoleon, got angry when a political rival in the New York State Legislature named a town Waterloo, after Napoleon's greatest defeat, so he randomly picked the next town being named and overrode the agreed upon name with Austerlitz, Napoleon's greatest victory

State legislatures infographics

Beautiful visual representation of State Legislatures numbers and stats to get perspecive of the whole story.

state legislatures fact infographic about Percentage Of U.S. State Legislature Elections With Candidat

Percentage Of U.S. State Legislature Elections With Candidates From Both Major Parties


state legislatures fact infographic about A diagram of all American state legislatures with proportion

A diagram of all American state legislatures with proportional representation and unicameralism


When state legislatures codified the laws they generally?

The Bear Mountain Compact is an unofficial agreement among members of the New York State legislature in which they agree to keep whatever happens in the state capital in Albany, such as extramarital affairs and other embarrassing behavior, secret.

During the late 1800s, Cady Stanton used her influence and writing abilities to help introduce suffrage and pro-women's equality laws to various state legislatures.

Nebraska is the only state in the union that has a unicameral legislature.

Before the 17th Amendment was adopted in 1913, senators were chosen by state legislatures rather than elected by the people they represented like we do today.

The 2nd Poet Laureate of New Jersey, Amiri Baraka, caused the position to be abolished after it had been created only 4 years earlier. Baraka published a poem claiming that Israel had foreknowledge of 9/11. As there was no legal way to remove him, the State Legislature abolished it.

How state legislatures abuse their redistricting power?

Nebraska is the only state with a unicameral, non-partisan legislature. Their "senators" serve 4-year terms.

About plans in the 1970s to build a 250,000 person 500 foot high domed city in northern Minnesota. The state legislature had approved funding and Ford, Boeing and Honeywell had all invested in the 4 billion dollar project.

In 1992, Althea Garrison (R) was the first transgender person to be elected to a state legislature in the United States, but did not campaign as an openly transgender person during her race.

While South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, in 1868, it became the first state to have a majority black Legislature.

That, in 1881, the Kansas Supreme Court stated that it "may be doubted" that a state legislature has the power to segregate schools based on race. This was 73 years before the U.S. Supreme Court's rulin in Brown v. Board of Education.

In 2013, the Oregon State Legislature established brewer's yeast as the official state microbe

The US Catholic Church actively lobbies state legislatures and officials to repeal reporting requirements and defeat legislation that expands prosecutorial power over child sex crimes

In state legislatures approximately 95% of resolutions are passed via voice vote.

The Wisconsin state legislature has explicitly defined "toxic substance" in their "Employees' Right to Know Law" to exclude Lutefisk

Most of the United States did not directly elect Senators until 1913; before then, most Senators were selected by their state legislature (though in some cases these appointments were based on non-binding elections or referendums)

During World War I the Louisiana state legislature passed Act 114 prohibiting all expressions of German culture and heritage, especially the printed or spoken use of the German language, in the state.

In 2010 Oregon Lawmakers joined together to rickroll the State Legislature and Oregon law requires that legislative proceedings be videotaped, thus everything was captured on tape.

The 1824 Presidential Election had the lowest voter turnout in US history at 26.9%. This was due to six states having their state legislatures choose electors rather than the popular vote.

Nebraska is the only state in the US that has a unicameral and nonpartisan legislature.

A persistent urban legend that says entering your bank ATM PIN in reverse will summon the police. While it isn't true, Congress and state legislatures have considered bills that would mandate such technology.

This is our collection of basic interesting facts about State Legislatures. The fact lists are intended for research in school, for college students or just to feed your brain with new realities. Possible use cases are in quizzes, differences, riddles, homework facts legend, cover facts, and many more. Whatever your case, learn the truth of the matter why is State Legislatures so important!

Editor Veselin Nedev Editor