How were state abbreviations decided upon?

Answer 1

The current state abbreviations were determined by the US postal service. They needed to standardize them because there were so many variations. Plus, they needed to reduce them to two letters.

Still causes confusion. I bought a car, online and was getting ready to make a road trip to Montana to pick it up. The abbreviation on the address was MO, and I figured on a couple of days, each way, from California. But I couldn't get good map directions, untill the seller sent me the info that MO was Missouri.

I changed my mind and had it shipped out.

Answer 2

Without a constitutional amendment or a radical departure from long settled constitutional law, it can't be just for the states. While family law has traditionally been the realm of the states, the full faith and credit clause of the constitution requires every state to give full faith and credit to the judicial decisions of every other state. Hence, if a court in New York rules that a marriage is valid, Alabama has to give full faith and credit to that judgment. This doesn't mean that Alabama has to solemnize gay marriages, but they must recognize the gay marriage of a couple that New York ruled as valid. (The same is true of divorce, the reason people always went to Reno to get divorced was that it didn't matter how restrictive their state was, that state was still required to recognize the Nevada divorce.) This creates a problem for the states rights people ( that most republicans used to pretend to be) in so far as if they argue for a federal ban on gay marriage they are interfering with states rights ( though they have proved they don't actually care about this though their interference with medical MJ and assisted suicide). The way around it is to ask for a constitutional amendment that creates a narrow exception to the full faith and credit clause. This won't get you passed the equal protection thing, but it will keep Alabama from being forced to recognize New York marriages.