Month in Review – March 2026

Here are the highlights for March:

* On March 6, we filed our opening brief in the Michigan Court of Appeals in our appeal of the circuit court’s order denying our motion to dismiss the patently frivolous lawsuit filed by three Biden electors against the 2020 Trump electors for Michigan.  We are representing five of the sixteen Trump electors.

You can read our brief here.

These same electors successfully fended off the criminal charges brought against them by the Michigan Attorney General for their role in the so-called “fake elector” scheme.  A state court judge dismissed the criminal case following the preliminary examination, finding that the charges against the Trump electors lacked merit.

The civil claims in this case also lack legal merit.  Indeed, they are frivolous.

In this civil case, the three Biden-elector plaintiffs are suing our clients for (1) declaratory relief (they essentially want a court to declare that Biden won the election . . . but courts resolve cases and controversies, they are not therapy sessions for political activists); (2) false-light/invasion of privacy; (3) conversion; and (4) conspiracy.

As we set forth in our brief, these claims fail as a matter of law.

* On March 19, we argued two important cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, both arguments were held on the same day (March 19).  You can listen to the arguments in the links provided below.

American Freedom Law Center v. Dana Nessel, Michigan Attorney General, et al.

The first case involved our lawsuit filed against Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and the director of the Michigan Department of Civil Rights (MDCR).

Our lawsuit challenges the Attorney General’s and the MDCR’s use of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) “hate group” list to target conservative organizations, including AFLC.

In 2020, the district court judge issued a favorable ruling denying the Attorney General’s and MDCR’s motions to dismiss our lawsuit on standing grounds.

Yet, after waiting over four years to rule on our cross-motions for summary judgment, the judge dismissed the lawsuit on standing grounds, prompting our appeal.

You can read more about this case here.

You can listen to the oral argument here.

Andrew Hess v. Oakland County, et al.

The second case involved our lawsuit filed on behalf of Andrew Hess.  We are defending Hess against the politicized prosecution launched against him by Karen McDonald, the Oakland County Prosecutor who is running to be the Democrat nominee for Michigan Attorney General.

McDonald is pursuing a 20-year felony charge against Hess for making an off-hand political comment in a near-empty lobby outside of the presence of any election official during a contentious election recount held in the county in December 2023.

We filed this federal lawsuit to halt this unlawful prosecution, which was designed to silence individuals who challenge the actions of election officials.

You can read more about this case here.

You can listen to the oral argument here.

* On March 23, we filed a petition for a writ of mandamus in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in our ongoing battle against Genoa Township, Michigan for denying our clients’ (Catholic Healthcare International (CHI) and its president) land use request to build a prayer campus on CHI’s wooded, 40-acre property in the Township.

As alleged in the lawsuit, the Township’s denial violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), a federal law that prohibits land use decisions that substantially burden religious exercise.

We filed the petition for a writ of mandamus because the district court judge appointed, over the objections of all the parties, a “special master” to handle any discovery disputes, at great cost to the parties.

The “special master,” who is a former judge in the same district and whose seat was filled by the current district court judge, intends to charge the parties over $900 an hour to do what the district court judge and the assigned magistrate judge are supposed to do in a case—rule on discovery disputes.

The writ of mandamus, an extraordinary relief, requests that the Sixth Circuit intervene and stop this injustice.  Indeed, the district court’s appointing order in this case, where CHI is a nonprofit religious organization and AFLC is a nonprofit law firm representing CHI pro bono, will force our clients to forgo their rights because it will be too costly to exercise them.

This is not justice, and we pray that the Sixth Circuit intervenes and corrects it.

You can read our petition for the writ here.

You can read more about this case here.

We have many other important cases at various stages of litigation.  You can read more about our work on our website.

Thank you for your prayers and financial support.  We couldn’t do what we do without them!