Finally got a verdict, in case someone from ND reads this post - yes, ND is a nice state, no, I mean a great state!

Intuit acknowledged it's a bug and should have a fix by late next week.  In the meantime, they say it can be fixed by flipping the spouse to taxpayer - because, evidently, the logic only works on the taxpayer but not the spouse - but I can't afford to do this because there're just too many complicated entries and sourcing on that return.

Guess I'll sit on my hands until late next week...

Apologies to the OP for hijacking this post.  If you could come back with some additional info, someone could still help solve your problem or at least shed some light on the issue.