BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — Two Fargo lawmakers say the time is ripe to repeal Sunday business restrictions in North Dakota that have been in place since statehood and rooted in religious tradition.

Democratic Rep. Pam Anderson and Republican Rep. Shannon Roers Jones are sponsoring nearly identical legislation aimed at stripping the nation’s strictest so-called blue laws from the books.

“The time has come,” said Anderson, whose bipartisan measure was defeated by a handful of votes in the Senate last year. Three of the Republican senators who voted against the repeal are no longer in the Legislature.

“We were close last time and I think a couple of others, we can flip,” Roers Jones said. Her father, Fargo GOP Sen. Jim Roers, voted against the repeal last time and is expected to do the same this session, she said.

“We argue about it all the time,” she said.

Blue laws have existed since North Dakota became a state in 1889, stemming from fears that visiting a retail store on Sunday morning would compete with church and erode family values, leaving little time for rest.

Critics say Sunday shopping will not keep people from the pews and they hurt businesses, which must now compete with online shopping. The National Conference of State Legislatures says North Dakota is the only state that prohibits shopping on Sunday morning.

Anderson and Roers Jones point to the Legislature’s willingness to relax alcohol sales on Sunday, allowing restaurants and bars to begin serving alcohol at 11 a.m. on Sundays, instead of noon.

Proponents said North Dakota’s booze restrictions put cities bordering other states at a disadvantage because those states allow for earlier sales on Sundays. The argument also should be applied to all Sunday sales, Anderson and Roers Jones said.