States' Rights

At the Dollar rental car counter in Phoenix, the counter attendant looks at my driver’s license and asks: “New Hampshire – is that still a state?” “Yeah, I don’t think states can get demoted” was my terse reply.

But Canada, with 10 provinces and 3 territories has more creative options than the U.S. Heck, they only had two territories until 1999 when the powers that be carved up the Northwest Territories and created Nuavut - home to a grand total of 33,000 folks. When my wife and I lived in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador for a time, Labrador was anticipating huge revenues from off shore natural gas reserves. Always feeling like a poor cousin to those Provincial Bureaucrats in St. Johns (pronounced “sinjohns” there), Labrador considered petitioning the federal government (that’d be Ottawa for you States people), to let it default to the status of a territory. That “demotion” made a lot of sense to some at the time. But no matter, it turns out that the natural gas revenues weren’t about to start gushing after all and the whole idea was dropped.

But back in the U.S., I think I like the idea of being able to demote a state. I can think of a few choice candidates right now based on their past voting record….