Group sues to stop Unlock Michigan petition initiative

A group opposing efforts to repeal a law underpinning Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's emergency authority is suing a state board and the Michigan secretary of state to stop consideration of a petition and signatures aiming to end the emergency powers law. 

Keep Michigan Safe filed suit Wednesday in the Michigan Court of Claims and asked the court to bar the Board of State Canvassers from considering the Unlock Michigan petition until the board has properly developed rules that would guide its consideration. 

The group threatened the lawsuit in a challenge to Unlock Michigan's petition last week and followed through Wednesday, urging timely consideration of the lawsuit because the board plans to consider the signatures April 22.

“From Day One, Unlock Michigan has engaged in illegal, unethical and unscrupulous behavior in its petition drive, including hiring a convicted felon to run the campaign and coaching petition gatherers to blatantly lie to convince people to sign petitions,” Keep Michigan Safe lawyer Mark Brewer said Wednesday.

“Our lawsuit, if successful, will halt the Board of Canvassers review of these faulty petitions, helping keep Michiganders safe in the process," he said. 

Keep Michigan Safe "must not have much confidence in the challenges they filed" against the petition considering Wednesday's lawsuit, said Fred Wszolek, a spokesman for Unlock Michigan. 

"As to their lawsuit, we expect our petitions to be canvassed according to the rules that were in effect when we started collecting signatures and were in effect when we turned our signatures in," Wszolek said. "It’s nuts to think that there would be an entirely different set of rules imposed on us now."

Unlock Michigan submitted more than 500,000 signatures in October in support of a repeal of the 1945 Emergency Powers of the Governor Act, which Whitmer used to issue pandemic executive orders prior to an Oct. 2 ruling from the Michigan Supreme Court that determined the law unconstitutional. 

Attorney General Dana Nessel is investigating the petition effort amid allegations that Unlock Michigan hired a trainer who advised circulators and volunteers on techniques that may have led to alleged criminal activity. Wszolek has said Unlock Michigan wouldn't use signatures turned in by the company that employed the trainer. 

Nessel's office said Wednesday an isolation wall had been set up so that her office could both continue it's investigation in the criminal division and defend the secretary of state's office through the office's elections team.

In March, the Bureau of Election selected a 500-signature sample to determine the validity of Unlock Mich 500 signatures and will eventually recommend certification or rejection to the Board of State Canvassers. If the board certifies the petition, it would go to the GOP-led Legislature, which is likely to adopt the measure instead of sending it to the 2022 ballot. 

On Friday, Keep Michigan Safe filed a challenge to the signatures and doubled down on those challenges in Wednesday's lawsuit.

"Because the Board’s initiative and referendum petition and signature review practices were not promulgated under the APA, they cannot be used to review the Unlock Michigan statutory initiative petition," the lawsuit said.

For years, the Board of State Canvassers has used guidance from the secretary of state geared toward people collecting petition signatures. But Keep Michigan Safe argued state election laws require the rules to be promulgated through the Administrative Procedures Act, which includes weeks and months of public notice, comment and committee testimony. 

"...the office of the Secretary of State has completely abandoned that responsibility for over 20 years and has failed to issue any rules under the APA establishing standards for petition signatures at all," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit zeroes in on how canvassers are to determine "the genuineness of the signature of a circulator or individual signing a petition" because of allegations of wrong doing by the signature gatherers.

eleblanc@detroitnews.com