With all 50 state legislatures ranked from most to least conservative, see which states best California as most liberal

The Alabama State Capitol stands on May 15, 2019 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Photo by Julie Bennett/Getty Images)

by: Cameron Kiszla, Brad Dress, The Hill via Nexstar Media Wire

Posted: Dec 6, 2022 / 09:26 AM PST

Updated: Dec 6, 2022 / 11:12 AM PST

A new report from the Center for Legislative Accountability has ranked all 50 states from most to least conservative.

While it’s likely no surprise that Alabama was named the most conservative state in the U.S., Californians might be taken aback that their state Legislature didn’t take the most liberal spot.

In Fact, California didn’t even make the top three.

Massachusetts was chosen as the least conservative, followed by Hawaii and Rhode Island. The legislators in Sacramento came in fourth.

The rankings from CLA, a project of the Conservative Political Action Committee and the American Conservative Union, are based on the conservative voting records of lawmakers across 186 policy categories in 2021.

For example, Alabama lawmakers voted last year with a conservative position at the highest rate, or 74% of the time. Massachusetts lawmakers voted with the conservative position just 15% of the time, the lowest rate.

Overall, the nation has grown more polarized, according to the CLA finding.

The 3,906 Republican state lawmakers in the U.S. voted conservative 80.8% of the time in 2021, up from 76.4% in 2020.

The 3,223 Democratic state lawmakers voted conservative 15.9% of the time, down from 18.7% in 2020.

Here how the state rankings ended up.