 The suit named Governor Sean Parnell as the primary defendant.The state's brief, filed on June 19, said that the questions the plaintiffs raised were political, not legal.It said that under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution "Alaska has the right as a sovereign state to define and regulate marriage" and "Alaska voters had a fundamental right to decide the important public policy issue of whether to alter the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman."