Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel continued her legal crusade against President Donald Trump this week with additional court filings many of her constituents oppose.
Nessel joined a coalition of 21 blue state attorneys general Monday in filing a request for a preliminary injunction to halt the 47th POTUS’ executive order to dissolve the U.S. Department of Education, a move that returns power to the states.
The case is one of six filed or joined by Nessel targeting Trump’s efforts to reduce the cost and size of the federal government, a key plank of his 2024 campaign that won him the votes of more than 77 million Americans, including 2.8 million in Michigan – roughly half a million more than Nessel’s vote count in 2022.
“This executive order is just another illegal attempt by Donald Trump to unilaterally strip essential services from millions of students,” Nessel said in a statement. “Eliminating the Department of Education would gut critical Early On services for young children, eliminate community learning centers that provide support for our students, and threaten FAFSA funding that makes higher education accessible. The administration’s reckless move not only jeopardizes Michigan’s students but is blatantly unconstitutional.”
Nessel points to approximately $1.5 billion in federal education spending for a variety of programs to insist education outcomes will suffer in Michigan as a result of Trump’s EO.
The reality is federal education funding eclipsed that figure in 2008, and has averaged more than $3.3 billion annually since 2019, according to a school aid funding history from the Senate Fiscal Agency.
Yet since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took office that same year, third grade reading proficiency – a key indicator of future education success – has hit a 10-year low, going from 45.1% to 39.6% in 2024 state assessments.
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A Kids Count report from The Annie E. Casey Foundation ranks Michigan 41st among states in education, in part because three quarters of fourth- and eight-graders can’t read at grade level.
“We spend more and we get less,” Whitmer acknowledged during her recent State of the State address. “It’s not acceptable.”
In a separate lawsuit, Nessel and 22 other blue state attorneys general filed a second motion for enforcement on Monday seeking to block disruptions in federal funding flowing through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has faced heated criticism in recent years for slow disaster responses and diverting funding to support illegal immigrants.
That case centers on a Trump executive order to review federal spending that has been blocked in federal court. FEMA is now manually reviewing grants, but Nessel contends that process is too slow.
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“Even with the preliminary injunction that we secured, the Trump administration is still withholding FEMA grants to the Michigan State Police, vital funds that law enforcement depends on to assist Michiganders during disasters, prepare for emergencies, and strengthen homeland security,” Nessel said. “By continuing to illegally block these grants, the administration is undoubtedly making our state less safe. While Donald Trump and his administration may believe they can ignore the rule of law, my coalition and I are here to remind them that is not the case. I will keep fighting on behalf of all Michiganders until this crucial funding is released.”
That fight “on behalf of all Michiganders” started well before Trump’s EOs, with Nessel, a lesbian, declaring during the 2024 presidential campaign she’s “Out for Biden” and vowing to “Stop Trump.”
Nessel further promoted the Democratic lie Trump will impose a national abortion ban, while simultaneously prosecuting 16 Republicans who supported the president in 2020.
Voters in November elected a Republican majority to the Michigan House that supports President Trump’s agenda, and is now reviewing how Nessel runs her office through a new House Oversight Subcommittee on the Weaponization of State Government.
Nessel’s latest legal filings against Trump followed just four days after House Republicans, who represent a majority of Michiganders, approved House Resolution 55 “to support the devolution of power from the United States Department of Education to the states and to urge the United States Congress to fully cooperate with these efforts.”
The resolution notes that despite U.S. taxpayers spending $276 billion on student learning recovery, and the DOE’s annual budget of $268 billion, “gaps in meeting educational needs continue to cause our students to suffer.”
“In addition to overseeing the decline in students’ educational performance in every conceivable, measurable category, the Department of Education is also comprised of distant, remote, and unaccountable bureaucrats who are in no way familiar with the lives of the students they are impacting,” state Rep. Jason Woolford, R-Howell, said in a statement.
“Responsibly governing and representing the interests of the American people demands that we shift control away from this faceless bureaucracy and back to the teachers, local officials, and parents who best know the needs in their own communities’ classrooms,” he said. “This effort to restore authority over public education in the hands of those who are most intimately familiar with the needs and concerns of students will go a long way towards fixing our broken education system.”