Polarization in the state legislatures.

Maybe I don’t read the right blogs but I’m delighted to see  a blog post that actually looks at politics from the perspective of the  common space scores.  The chart below shows the distribution of the scores for various state legislatures (i’ve no idea what the order means):

npat_boxplot_marked_maldonado

This is a very instructive chart.  CA, UT, WI, FL, and WA have no common ground between the parties.  I’m surprised they let NJ, HI, NY, RI, and MA Republicans into the hall when national Republicans gather.

California is an object lesson in where we are headed if the nation doesn’t figure out how to back off from the polarization between the two parties.  I wonder, does a requirement for a super majority tends to help consensus when there is a large overlap and tends to create an incentive to polarize when the overlap weakens?

(HT:  Gelman)