Year-round residents of Alaska will each get a $1,884 royalty check this year from a state oil wealth trust fund, but residents of North Dakota aren't so lucky.

The Bismarck Tribune reports:

In North Dakota, it would be unconstitutional, said John Walstad, legal division director for the state’s Legislative Council. “We get that question from time to time: ‘How come I don’t get a check?’” Walstad said. “Well, because our constitution says ‘no’ at this point. It could be changed, but right now it says ‘no.’”

Reporter Erik Burgess explains the part of the state constitution that prohibits such royalty payments, and shows that it's not exactly a well-thought-out thing:

The constitutional language in North Dakota that prohibits a direct payment to residents is found in Article X, Section 18, in which it states that the state cannot “loan or give its credit or make donations to or in aid of any individual, association or corporation except for reasonable support of the poor.” That language was put into the constitution “ages and ages” ago, Walstad said, and it’s an attempt to prevent the state from investing state money into private enterprises.

Changing the rules would require a constitutional amendment. Meanwhile, daily oil production in North Dakota is now comfortably above 1 million barrels a day, and natural gas production in July was at 1.3 billion cubic feet per day, an all-time high.