- I find the fact that nobody seems to know how those names got into the bill particularly frustrating.
Lawmakers really need to learn to use version tracking properly. It's shouldn't be possible for a single line of text to make it into a bill without a digital trail leading back to whoever added it.
- Proposed constitutional amendment: Within 30 days after a bill is made law, legislators that voted must pass an automatically generated comprehension test of the legislation at a 6th grade level. On failure they lose voting privileges for 90 days. On three strikes they leave office and a new election for that seat is called.
by randycupertino
2 subcomments
- Apparently one fake mineral was flagged and removed but these two made it through to the law:
> The fake minerals are friezium and stralium, apparent references to Christopher Friez and David Straley, attorneys for North American Coal who were closely involved in drafting the bill and its amendments.
> Bjornson said a Legislative Council attorney flagged and removed a fictional mineral, “docterium,” earlier in the session from an unofficial draft of the same bill before it became part of the legislative record.
> Anderson recalls joking about finding docterium, a reference to Rep. Jason Dockter, during a committee hearing. The lawmaker said he noticed the term in an unofficial draft afterward and immediately asked Legislative Council to remove it.
- They don't even know the difference between a mineral and an element contained in the mineral. I could see only two proper mineral names in the list: barite and bauxite. Fluorspar's generic name is fluorite. Almost the entirety of the list is fake. It is indeed relevant to name the minerals correctly since it by its definition asserts a particular concentration of a constituent element.
by optimalquiet
1 subcomments
- My interpretation of what happened here is that a legislator who opposed the bill inserted the names of the lobbyists as a joke against the bill, which has now paid off. The article says that the original list did not include the names, they were added during the legislative amendment process by a legislator.
While corporate authorship of bills is a concern, I don’t think this particular mishap is a direct result of that and in fact seems to have been an attempt to subtly criticize it.
- It's ridiculous how much of our bills are completely written by interest groups like the coal industry. I'm surprised they even reviewed it enough to catch it
In 2010 Arizona passed an anti-immigrant bill written by the private prison company Corrections Corporation of America (now CoreCivic). We know it was written by CCA because they literally left the logo on the bill
- Nearly as bad, this website encrypts it's text using a simple cipher intentionally breaking it for those that don't successfully run all of their untrusted third party code.
>kAm%96 :?4=FD:@? @7 7:4E:@?2= DF3DE2?46D :D 36:?8 42==65 2? 6>32CC2DD>6?E 3J @?6 DE2E6 @77:4:2=[ 2 A@DD:3=6 AC24E:42= ;@<6 3J 4@2= :?5FDECJ =6256CD 2?5 >JDE:7J:?8 3J E96 =2H>2<6CD H9@ H@C<65 @? E96 3:==[ E96 k2 9C67lQ9EEADi^^?@CE952<@E2>@?:E@C]4@>^a_ad^`a^`h^?@CE9\52<@E2\=2H\244:56?E2==J\=:DED\72<6\4C:E:42=\>:?6C2=D\32D65\@?\4@2=\=2HJ6CD\?2>6D^Q E2C86ElQ03=2?<Qm}@CE9 s2<@E2 |@?:Ek^2m@C C6A@CE65]k^Am... etc
That's the first time I've encountered this particular affront. Nasty stuff. We should not be giving them web traffic. https://northdakotamonitor.com/2025/12/19/north-dakota-law-a... is much better in that it actually has readable text on the page.
- Broken country with a broken governments all the way down. It's clearly common practise to pass bills without knowing what they contain. Horrible.
by toomuchtodo
0 subcomment
- https://northdakotamonitor.com/2025/12/19/north-dakota-law-a...
https://northdakotamonitor.com/2025/05/02/lawmakers-pass-bil...
https://ndlegis.gov/assembly/69-2025/regular/bill-overview/b...
- The list also includes astatine, which (although a real element) has basically no use, is highly radioactive and only exists for a few hours before becoming either polonium or bismuth. And of course, you can't mine it because there are no ores of astatine nor minerals containing it.
by VerifiedReports
0 subcomment
- Apparently some clever person was mocking bills written by industry shills. Put that guy in charge.
- So... does it mean that nobody reads the law? Is it good or bad? What is the takeaway?
by decimalenough
1 subcomments
- On mobile: does this article really consist of a single paragraph of text and a single illegible small screenshot, buried in an avalanche of ads, including things like "More >" links that open more ads?
- > The fake minerals are friezium and stralium, apparent references to Christopher Friez and David Straley, attorneys for North American Coal who were closely involved in drafting the bill and its amendments.
> “It would be kind of embarrassing for the rest of the country to look at us and say ‘Really? Do you guys even know what you’re doing?’”
> Anderson said the amendments were prepared by a group of attorneys and legislators, including representatives from the coal industry.
So that is not embarrassing? You aren't embarrassed that ... you were clearly not doing your jobs, but just letting industry mark up the bill... And then didn't even read it?
Any embarrassment there? Any?
Bueller? Bueller?
by detectivestory
0 subcomment
- Wasn't there a joke about this happening in some movie when an English soccer team manager wrote the team name on the back of a box of cigarettes. Later he had to include the inclusion of two unknown players in the selection: The players names were Benson, and Hedges.
by londons_explore
1 subcomments
- I would like to see a nation whose laws are limited to what people can remember.
Ie. In a court, a jury makes their decision about if the accused has broken the law simply on their recollection of the law.
In turn, this means all rules must necessarily be far simpler and less precise.
Lawmakers wouldn't write laws so much as advertise what they think the law should be, and if the population remembered and agreed with the new law then it becomes the law, since that would be what the courts are enforcing.
by JumpCrisscross
1 subcomments
- Are there any practical effects of this? Could I name an existing mineral stralium and get goodies?
by readthenotes1
1 subcomments
- [flagged]
by bschmidt25014
0 subcomment
- [dead]
by poplarsol
4 subcomments
- [flagged]
by ocdtrekkie
0 subcomment
- It's probably a good guess that whoever wrote it was a lawyer and not an industry expert, and presumably used these as placeholders for an industry expert could fill in that nobody ever actually replaced.
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