HEMLOCK, MI — A Saginaw County attorney is suing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer once again, this time challenging her exercise of emergency powers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Attorney Philip Ellison’s Hemlock-based Outside Legal Counsel PLC, together with associated counsel Matthew Gronda, and on behalf of nonprofit advocacy group Michigan United for Liberty, has filed a new lawsuit challenging Whitmer’s actions and the two laws she has used to issue nearly four dozen executive orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The suit, filed in the Michigan Court of Claims, challenges the constitutionality of the Emergency Management Act and the Emergency Powers of the Governor Act of 1945.

“Both laws purport to convey the power to legislate (meaning the creation or amendments of statutes involving activities like elections, school closures, and more) to the Michigan Governor without passage and formal approval in the Michigan Legislature,” a news release on the firm’s website states. “Under the Michigan Constitution, ‘no person exercising powers of one branch shall exercise powers properly belonging to another branch except as expressly provided by the Constitution.’ The Michigan Constitution does not provide the Governor emergency powers generally or has a pandemic exception to the separation of powers.”

Whitmer’s Press Secretary Tiffany Brown said the governor’s office does not comment on pending litigation.

The suit contends Whitmer “unilaterally made spending appropriations, suspended and/or modified legislatively enacted statutes, and seriously infringed upon basic individual liberties and property rights guaranteed by both the state and federal constitutions through a series of executive orders beginning on March 10, 2020," and during an April 20 press conference, Whitmer "strongly suggested that she will continue to act unilaterally without the authorization of the Michigan Legislature.”

The plaintiff, Michigan United for Liberty, is a nonprofit coalition of nearly 8,000 people organized and formed in response to Whitmer’s first stay-at-home order “for the purpose of advocating against the unconstitutionality of that and like orders within the State of Michigan," according to the press release. The suit does not seek any money or compensation, but rather a formal judicial declaration that the governor’s actions are unconstitutional.

“Our state and our country have overcome wars, emergencies, and huge challenges not because we had a single leader but three separate and deconsolidated centers of political powers,” Matthew Gronda, co-counsel for the plaintiff in the case, said in a statement.

Ellison added in a statement, “We have beaten every challenge without having to resort to an autocracy."

Ellison also sued Whitmer earlier this month, arguing she violated her authority in issuing an executive order regarding Freedom of Information Act requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of Tuesday, April 21, the pandemic had sickened nearly 33,000 people and killed 2,700 in Michigan.

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