ND and the US Supreme Court | Video

Jessica Roose | 3/26/2012

North Dakota`s Attorney General was at the U.S. Supreme Court today to hear opening testimony in the dispute over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It`s not often that North Dakota is directly involved in Supreme Court decisions, but there have been several cases in the past that connect our state to the highest court in the country.

The chambers of the Supreme Court were packed with spectators, the attorneys general from 26 states that are suing the federal government over whether the Obama administration`s heath care law is constitutional. Wayne Stenehjem is representing North Dakota at the historic hearing.

"Today was the anti-injunction act, tomorrow they`re going to take up the oversight of the individual mandates. That`s kind of the headliner of all the cases to determine if congress has the power to enforce every citizen or nearly every citizen in the country to buy a product that they may not want," Stenehjem said.

While Stenehjem is watching from the audience, this isn`t the first time an attorney general from North Dakota has been at the center of major case. A little over 20 years ago, Nicholas Spaeth argued on behalf of the state in the Quill Corportation vs. North Dakota.

"The Quill case involved the statute the legislature passed that would have taxed mail order sales that were made by companies outside the state that had no other connection inside the state," said North Dakota Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald VandeWalle.

VandeWalle, says the state ultimately lost that case 8 to 1, and there have been several other North Dakota decisions that have been overruled. Stenehjem hopes today`s case goes better for the state. Arguments will continue for the next two days and it is expected a decision will be handed down in June.

The attorneys general will spend the next few days in DC to observe the case.

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