Faith of state legislators.

• Position: TRENDS AND TRANSITIONS - Brief article

An NCSL analysis about the religious affiliation of state legislators from their publicly available biographies in 2008 shows about one-third of all state legislators are Protestants and, when combined with Catholics, make up half of lawmakers. Forty-three percent of legislators did not report their religion, since there is no standard requiring it.

However, 80 percent or more of state legislators in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Virginia and West Virginia listed their religion. Fewer than 40 percent did so in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

There were more than 10 Jewish legislators in three states: Florida...