GRAND RAPIDS, MI - A judge ordered Michigan Auto Dealers Association to turn over documents sought by Tesla Motors over the state's so-called "Anti-Tesla Amendment" that prevents the electric-car maker from selling directly to customers.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Ellen Carmody ordered MADA to provide subpoenaed documents within two weeks of her Tuesday, March 13, order.

The documents will be filed under a protective order that allows viewing only by attorneys and the judge. The association also has to provide a log of any documents withheld under attorney-client privilege.

Tesla will then have seven days to object to such claims.

MADA says the law, amended in 2014, has been in effect for decades. Tesla just wants to be another Apple: selling directly to consumers, and keeping sales and service proceeds for itself, it says.

Tesla sued Gov. Rick Snyder, Secretary of State Ruth Johnson and Attorney General Bill Schuette, alleging constitutional violations for prohibiting car manufacturers from selling directly to consumers in Michigan.

Tesla attorney John Bursch, who earlier won limited access to records of state Sen Joe Hune, R-Gregory, and state Rep. Jason Sheppard, R-Temperance, said three auto dealers who volunteered to testify, the dealers association and its lobbyist have blocked access to relevant materials during the discovery process.

"As the Court is aware from previous motion practice, there is growing evidence that the 'Anti-Tesla Amendment' - the unconstitutional law challenged in this lawsuit - was drafted by the Michigan Auto Dealers Association for protectionist purposes and pushed through the legislature in 24 hours to avoid public scrutiny," Bursch said in court documents.

He said that both Carmody and District Judge Janet Neff have rejected withholding documents under "associational privilege, and recognized that such discovery is highly relevant to Tesla's claims.

"Yet nearly eighteen months into the litigation, Tesla has yet to receive a single document from the Dealers, MADA, or their lobbyist, who have blocked this highly relevant discovery through objections, protracted motion practice, and unauthorized appeals. By now it is apparent that they are attempting to run out the discovery clock, in the hopes that their documents - and their role in the Anti-Tesla Amendment - never see the light of day," Bursch wrote.

He said documents provided by the state show MADA's "direct role in the Anti-Tesla Amendment."

A state worker's email in early 2014 referenced a memorandum analyzing whether a vehicle could be sold directly to consumers under the law in effect at the time: "This is what (MADA Executive Vice President) Terry Burns was talking about as it relates to Tesla."

The state says the change in the law simply "clarified an existing requirement in Michigan law" that said anufacturers without their own franchised dealers had to sell through another manufacturer's franchised dealers.

MADA also disputed Tesla's contentions.

Tesla's case is "built only on hyperbole," MADA attorneys Michael Smith and Eric Bowden wrote in court documents.

"There was no 'anti-Tesla amendment ... pushed through the legislature in 24 hours to avoid public scrutiny,'" the MADA attorneys wrote. "There was a valid statutory revision enacted via substitute, through routine, permissible legislative rules and processes, and approved overwhelmingly by a 144-1 vote of election lawmakers."

Rather than serving as a "protectionist purpose," the amendment "aimed to foreclose the erroneous legal interpretation with which Tesla alone sought to end-run the licensed-dealer system through which every other automaker, foreign and domestic, has sold vehicles in Michigan since before Tesla existed," Smith and Bowden wrote.

MADA "freely admits" it backed the amendment to protect Michigan's dealer system, but said it only suggested a minor change.

"The curtain thus pulled back, Tesla nonetheless continues pulling levers and pumping valves, hoping like the Wizard to distract and confound. Its MADA subpoena is the latest belch of smoke."

MADA said that Michigan for decades has required all automakers to sell vehicles through independent, state-licensed franchised dealerships.

The amendment had no legal impact on Tesla's ability to sell directly in Michigan. It couldn't before, and can't now, the attorneys said.

MADA said it should be no surprise that a group with an economic interest in an issue taking a stance.

But it said there are no documents that support Tesla's claims. Even if there were, it would not make the law unconstitutional, MADA says.

"Tesla is an automaker. Its electric vehicles use some cutting-edge technology - along with mundane things like tires, doors and seatbelts - so it portrays itself as revolutionary. It does so because it wants to sell directly to consumers, dictating prices and keeping all sales and service proceeds for itself. In short, Tesla wants to be Apple," Smith and Bowden wrote.

"But Michigan law treats autos and smartphones differently."

The Michigan Chamber of Commerce and multiple trade and labor organizations were allowed to file briefs objecting to a ruling that MADA did not have associational privilege with its members.

The groups need "free, full, and frank communications with and among its members. And each sees that ability as being severely threatened by the subpoena through which Tesla seeks to compel production of privileged communications between those three auto dealers and their state association, the Michigan Automobile Dealers Association," attorney Gary Gordon wrote.

Tesla calls the information "highly relevant" to its case.