Underidentification of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD; emotional disturbance or ED in federal language) is a critical issue, perhaps explainable in part by causal attributions of problem behavior associated with conservatism. Conservatism in 58 counties in the state of California was measured by finding the percentage of voters in the county voting in favor or Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, under the assumption that opposition to gay marriage is an indicator of conservatism. We conducted a series of hierarchical regression analyses in which conservatism, ethnicity, free/reduced lunch, and suspension/expulsion were used to explain county rates of ED, intellectual disability, and learning disability identification. The model for county identification of ED accounted for 45% of the variance from county to county, with conservatism being the strongest predictor (ß = -0.78, p < 0.001). More conservative counties had lower rates of ED identification. Other variables may contribute to under-identification, but causal attributions associated with conservatism may play a significant role.