States of the United States of Quentin
States of the United States of Quentin are constituent political entities which exist inside of the United States of Quentin, of which there are currently 10. Bound together in political union under the United States of Quentin Constitution, the states each hold governmental jurisdiction over their territories, and there is a sense of shared sovereignty between the states and the federal government, as citizens are citizens of both the USQ and the state in which they reside. State citizenship is flexible, and all states operate under the same federal law, including the fact that all citizens are free to travel anywhere in the nation.
These states are further divided into state districts, which are further subdivisions which make laws, although they operate with much less sovereignty than do states. Each state government operates with directions from its own state constitution, and although each government operates differently, all are grounded in republican principles of balance of power and are based off the model of the federal government.
States are differentiated from Quentinian territories by the fact that all states can devise their own state laws in addition to federal laws, each state has representatives in the House of Bureaucrats, Quentinian House of Representatives, and Presidential Electoral Committee, and has sovereignty, which the territories do not. Unlike other existing federations, the state concept of the USQ is dominated by the idea that the federal government is ultimately supreme, that states only exist for organizational and diversity reasons, and that states only exist as part of the federal government, meaning the federal government can dissolve any at any time, or create any at any time at its discretion. The Department of State, an executive federal department, was created for the sole purpose of enforcing the federal government's superiority over states, and for resolving issues between states.
States generally take care of such matters as education, public health, law enforcement, and transportation, and while the federal government operates programs on all of these subjects, they are on a much broader scale. The number of states has grown from the original four in 1834 to 10, with the last state, Long Beach Island, admitted in 1895. Debate has grown in the USQ over whether the territories of Berlinsavis and/or the Kade Islands should become states, to the point where it has become a major political issue in the country today.
