State Legislature facts
While investigating facts about State Legislature Texas and State Legislature California, 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 legislature works?
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 legislature means?
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 Legislature Hawaii and State Legislature Florida I managed to collect.
what state legislatures are in session?
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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”
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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.
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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.
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A group of Oregon lawmakers rickrolled the state legislature in 2011. Each person incorporated one line into their speech.
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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.
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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.
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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".
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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.
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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.
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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 Legislature data charts
For your convenience take a look at State Legislature figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.
Why are state legislatures bicameral?
You can easily fact check which of the two houses of state legislature is more powerful why 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 legislature does not have a rule?
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 to write a bill for state legislature?
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 legislature infographics
Beautiful visual representation of State Legislature numbers and stats to get perspecive of the whole story.