by Karl Kurtz and Morgan Cullen
Our analysis of information about the religious affiliation of state legislators from their publicly available biographies in 2008 shows that those who have no religious affiliation or choose not to report it make up 43 percent of the total. Protestants comprise about one-third of all state legislators. Combining Protestants with Catholics and other Christians accounts for just over half of all lawmakers.
This high rate of "unspecified" is probably a result of the lack of consistency in legislators' biographies across states. With no standard form for bios that includes a category of religion, many legislators will not think (or choose) to include their religious affiliation. In the U.S. population as a whole, according to the Statistical Abstract, 2009, only 17 percent of the people report that they are unaffiliated or don't know their religion.
One result of this under-reporting of religious affiliation by legislators is that every religion appears to be slightly under-represented in legislatures compared to the population as a whole. Protestants, for example, make up 51 percent of the general population compared to 34 percent of state legislators.
Here are some interesting trivia from the data:
- Southern state legislators were much more likely to report their religious affiliation in their biographies. The states in which 80 percent or more of state legislators specified their religion are Mississippi, Virginia, Kentucky, Florida, Alabama and West Virginia. The states with the least reporting of religious affiliations were in the West. Less than 40 percent of legislators in Oregon, California Utah, Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada and Washington revealed their religion.
- Massachusetts had the highest percentage of Catholics (36 percent) but Pennsylvania had the largest number (78). New York, Illinois and New Hampshire also had 50 or more Catholic legislators.
- There were more than 10 Jewish legislators only in New York (24), Florida (17) and Maryland (13).
- Mormon legislators were concentrated in Utah (27), Idaho (24) and Wyoming (11).
- Three legislators reported that they are Buddhist, three Muslim, and two Hindu.