Massachusetts Legislature Ranks Most Liberal Nationwide, Conservative Groups Say

Massachusetts lawmakers are the most liberal in the nation. Or so say two national conservative organizations, the American Conservative Union Foundation and the Conservative Political Action Conference, in an analysis released Thursday.

Only 16% of votes cast by Massachusetts state legislators in 2020 aligned with conservative positions on issues like corporate tax increases and abortion access, they found, among the 43 evaluated states. The groups compared the voting records of more than 8,000 elected officials nationwide across 186 policy areas.

Matt Schlapp, chairman of CPAC, said the goal of the ranking is to increase transparency in the legislative process for voters. Florida and Louisiana were ranked as the most conservative while Hawaii and Vermont joined Massachusetts among the most liberal.

“Obviously the people who believe that the government should be constrained and should spend less, and should play a smaller role in our lives, believe this is a bad trend for the state of Massachusetts,” Schlapp said.

But Jesse Rhodes, a political science professor at UMass Amherst, says it is not surprising that the state legislature is considered the most liberal. What the survey failed to take into account, he said, is the positions of those who live in the legislatures’ states.

“Whenever an organization, be it conservative or liberal, puts out a ranking of states or state legislators, the rankings usually reflect the priorities of the organization that is doing the ranking. And there’s not always a lot of nuances about how the behavior of the legislators relates to the preferences of their constituents,” Rhodes said. “That’s really the critical relationship that we should care about if we care about democracy.”

Massachusetts residents received a similar distinction to their legislature in 2018, when a Gallup poll found them to be the most liberal in the nation.

Rhodes has heard anecdotes from conservative residents who are unhappy with their lack of representation, especially with the Massachusetts congressional delegation, in his work as an associate director of the UMass Amherst Poll. Yet overall, he said, residents view the state legislature as performing better than the federal government or Congress.

Others say Massachusetts lawmakers aren’t liberal enough. Jonathan Cohn, chair of the issues committee at Progressive Massachusetts, disagreed with the ranking. The Commonwealth has a high number of Democratic legislators, he said, but the legislation they pass isn’t as progressive when compared to states like California or New York. He believes Massachusetts is behind on key progressive legislation, like same-day voter registration and allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.

“My initial thought on Massachusetts being ranked as the most liberal in the country is — I wish,” Cohn said.