We use the number of finalists and winners recognized by the Innovations in American Government Awards (IAGA) programme to measure state government innovativeness from 1986 to 2013. The measure is moderately related to two existing state policy innovativeness indexes. The fifty states vary remarkably and persistently in government innovativeness, which is more driven by internal antecedents than external ones. We find that between-state effects outperform within-state effects in explaining government innovativeness. We also reveal that government ideology, citizen ideology, and social capital are positively related to government innovativeness. The index developed in this study can be used in pertinent studies, and the findings contribute to the literature on public sector innovation.