Who decides what the official state (these are all real):
Motto (My favorite is Maryland’s “Fatti maschii, parole femine” or "Manly deeds, womanly words)
bird, boat, crstacean, dinosaur,dog, beverage, flower, fish, folk dance (from what I’ve seen it seems like states that all states with the category have the square dance as the official one,) fossil shell, insect, reptile, song, sport, tree, animal (best in Maine, the moose), cat, river, stone, gem, horse, and more.
Not all states have official all of these, it just seems ridiculous to go through the formality of making these official. Some of these have even been done in the past couple years. (I’ve even heard that the governor of the state where Mr. Potatoheads are produced pronounced it the official state toy.)
And, does anybody have anymore ridiculous state mottos or things declared official by the state that I can add to my list.
So, your question is, “Who decides this?”
Well, ultimately, under our current system of government, the voters decide this, because they’re the ones who send the legislators to the state capital, and also because it’s nearly always a voter somewhere who, for whatever reason, usually financial, proposes to his state congressperson that the state needs a state swimming pool toy.
Legislators are busy people and don’t have time to come up with this sort of thing themselves. They rely on their constituents and various special interest groups to keep them posted on what the citizens of their Fair State want, and if a group somewhere in a congressperson’s district wants an official state swimming pool toy, then by golly the helpful, friendly congressperson will leave no stone unturned in order to implement this and get a resolution passed in the legislature.
This part of your question would go better in MPSIMS. I invite you to post that question there, and you can put a link to it in this thread. I’ll keep this thread here in case anyone else has anything to add about the process by which these things are put into law.
bibliophage
moderator GQ