North Dakota? What North Dakota?

[Raph's Girl]

Woops! Time to update those maps and flags! We only have 49 states!

http://gawker.com/5820646/north-dako...lly-be-a-state

So, this is awkward, but, as it turns out, North Dakota may not actually even be a state at all, thanks to a constitutional conflict only recently discovered by an 82-year-old resident of Grand Forks. How embarrassing!

According to John Rolczynski, North Dakota's state constitution omits "the executive branch, the Governor and other high ranking officials when it explains who needs to take the oath of office." Since this places it in conflict with the federal constitution, it theoretically renders the state constitution invalid, and means that North Dakota has been a territory for the past 120 years or so.

And, honestly, we would be okay with North Dakota being a territory! I mean, Christ, we have two Dakotas right now, for no reason. And this one doesn't even have a giant mountain of president-heads! It might even might be an improvement, given that North Dakota has the population of an average congressional district and yet gets two whole senators, all to itself, who are free to do silly North Dakota-type things like call themselves "deficit hawks."

Unfortunately, State Senator Tim Mathern is trying to fix the constitution through an amendment that'll be voted on next year. Oh well! Next up for Rolczynski: Fixing the other mistake in the constitution, which incorrectly defines the territory's lower boundary.