Texas, Wyoming and Idaho are the states with the least personal freedoms in the American Union according to the latest Freedom in the 50 States map.
The study, which covers 2023, was published by free market supporting think tank the Cato Institute and conducted by William Ruger and Jason Sorens, two employees of the American Institute for Economic Research which advocates for limited government.
In recent years a number of contentious issues that relate to individual freedom, sometimes seeing dueling interpretations of this freedom come into conflict, have played a major role in American politics. This has included the debates about abortion access, transgender rights, the legalization of marijuana and taxation levels.
According to the Freedom in the 50 States report the ten states with the lowest personal freedom, from lowest to highest, are Texas, Idaho, Wyoming, Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas, Delaware, Alabama and Tennessee. With the sole exception of Delaware all of these are Republican dominated.
By contrast the states with the most individual freedom, from highest to lowest, are listed as Nevada, Arizona, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Vermont, Montana, Missouri, Massachusetts and West Virginia. Of these six have Republican governors against four which are led by Democrats.
To compile their rankings Ruger and Sorens examined the 50 states across 12 different categories, though they were given different weight toward the final result. These were incarceration and arrests for victimless crimes, tobacco freedom, gambling freedom, gun rights, educational freedom, marriage freedom, marijuana freedom, alcohol freedom, asset forfeiture, other mala prohibita (defined as criminal in statute but "not considered harms in common law"), miscellaneous civil liberties, travel freedom and campaign finance freedom.
Ruger and Sorens noted: "The top states in the personal freedom dimension tend to be more western and northeastern, while the bottom states are either socially conservative and southern or mid-Atlantic and liberal. As in past editions, we find a strong rural-urban division."
The authors interpreted this rural-urban divide to differences in "voters' fears of crime, which leads them to support harsh policing and prosecutorial tactics, stricter drug and gun laws, and more limits on civil liberties."
However they added: "No statistical relationship exists between personal freedom and actual violent crime rates … It is well-known that public perceptions of crime can diverge widely from the truth."
The authors gave a greater weight to what they termed "fundamental freedoms" such as speech and religion, over issues such as campaign finance rules and asset foreclosure.
Overall Rugar and Sorens conclude personal freedom has increased "substantially" across the U.S. since 2010. They attribute this partially to "ballot initiatives loosening marijuana regulations," the "spread of legal gambling" and "legislative criminal justice and asset forfeiture reforms."
On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 court ruling which concluded abortion access was a constitutional right, in a 6-3 decision.
In response campaigners pushed to get abortion access included in the state constitutions of a number of American states, with Arizona the latest to certify this right to the point of fetal viability on Monday following a public vote on November 5.
Over the past few years marijuana has been legalized in a number of states across the Union. On November 5 a bid to legalize marijuana in Florida failed despite having majority support, as it didn't cross the 60 percent threshold needed to become law.
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