• States which had continuous legislative opposition presence since statehood: Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
• States which had periods of no legislative opposition since statehood:
  • Alabama (House: 1959-1962, 1967-1970, 1975-1978; Senate: 1903-1906, 1923-1966, 1971-1982)
  • Arizona (House: 1915-1916, 1941-1944; Senate: 1925-1930, 1937-1952)
  • Arkansas (House: 1903-1904, 1933-1936; 1959-1960; Senate: 1899-1904, 1909-1910, 1915-1916, 1919-1968, 1979-1980)
  • Connecticut (Senate: 1800-1817, 1819-1824, 1865)
  • Delaware (House: 1857-1858, 1869-1880, 1883-1888, 1893-1894; Senate: 1869-1872, 1877-1880, 1885-1888)
  • Florida (House 1891-1894, 1899-1902, 1905-1906, 1911-1916, 1919-1928, 1931-1932, 1935-1946, 1949-1950; Senate 1891-1928, 1931-1952), 
  • Georgia (House: 1909-1910; Senate: 1883-1886, 1891-1892, 1905-1910, 1917-1920, 1923-1924, 1929-1930, 1951-1952)
  • Hawaii (Senate: 2017-2018)
  • Kansas (Senate: 1871-1872)
  • Louisiana (House: 1900-1911, 1920-1963, 1968-1969; Senate: 1892-1895, 1900-1911, 1920-1969, 1972-1975, 1980-1983)
  • Maine (Senate: 1885-1886, 1889-1890, 1895-1900, 1921-1922, 1929-1932)
  • Massachusetts (Senate: 1855)
  • Michigan (Senate: 1843-1845)
  • Minnesota (Senate: 1854-1855, 1905-1910, 1919-1930)
  • Mississippi (House: 1904-1962, 1968-1971; Senate: 1892-1963, 1968-1971)
  • Ohio (1929-1930)
  • Oklahoma (Senate:1937-1938)
  • Oregon (Senate: 1849)
  • Rhode Island (Senate: 1801; 1804-1805, 1808, 1815-1819, 1836-1837
  • South Carolina (House: 1903-1961, 1963-1964; Senate: 1897-1966)
  • South Dakota (Senate: 1945-1948)
  • Texas (House: 1931-1932, 1939-1950, 1950-1961, Senate: 1887-1892, 1901-1908, 1915-1920, 1929-1966)
  • Utah (Senate: 1907-1910)

Notable

Fun fact: Georgia is one of 10 states to have had unanimous party control in either house of state legislature at least once, and one of 23 states to have had unanimous party control of a state senate at least once. Racist Democrats held all seats in the State House in 1909-1910, and all seats in the State Senate in 1883-1886, 1891-1892, 1905-1910, 1917-1920, 1923-1924, 1929-1930, and 1951-1952.

• How many years without a minority caucus:
  • Alabama Senate: 43 years 
  • Louisiana House: 43 years
  • Mississippi House: 58 years
  • Mississippi Senate: 71 years
  • South Carolina House: 58 years
  • South Carolina Senate: 69 years 
  • Texas Senate: 37 years

Another political fact: Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee are the only ex-Confederate states to have had a continuous Republican party presence in both houses of state legislature since the Civil War.

In Virginia, Democrats kept Republicans to as low as 3 House and 1 Senate seat; in North Carolina, 4 House and 1 Senate; and in Tennessee, 5 House and 2 Senate.

Just as with Georgia, the historic base of the Republican Party in these states’ legislatures has been the Appalachian region.

The Black-and-tan faction

Research by academic researchers Jeff Jenkins and Boris Heersink shows how (parts 1 and 2), when Republicans (and by extension African-Americans) were locked out of legislative power throughout vast majority of the Jim Crow South until the 1960s, the largest exercise of political power by Southern Republicans was in distributing federal jobs to local Republican loyalists under Republican presidential administrations. Until the advent of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration, the black-and-tan faction of the Southern Republican Party fought a pitched conflict for control of the party, pitting the biracial black-and-tan coalition against the “lily-white” Republicans who favored expelling Black party activists from most leadership positions to increase political viability in the ex-Confederacy.

The black-and-tan coalition was often the largest source of access to employment by the federal government for African-Americans in the South, which cratered first under the pro-segregation policies of Woodrow Wilson, then the kneecapping of black-and-tan political bosses by the Hoover administration, and finally the coup-de-grâce of Roosevelt’s 1932 election, which began a long period of Democratic control of the presidency.