33 Facts About Dana Nessel

Dana Michelle Nessel was born on April 19,1969 and is an American politician and lawyer, serving as the 54th attorney general of Michigan since January 2019.

Dana Nessel is the first Jewish person elected Attorney General of Michigan.

In 2014, Nessel successfully argued for the plaintiffs in DeBoer v Snyder, which challenged Michigan's ban on the statewide legal recognition of same-sex marriage; the case was eventually combined with others and appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States as Obergefell v Hodges, which led to the nationwide legal recognition of same-sex marriage.

Dana Nessel was born in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan, the daughter of Martin and Sandra Dana Nessel.

Dana Nessel was raised in West Bloomfield and graduated from West Bloomfield High School in 1987, where she played soccer and was named All-State.

Dana Nessel received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in political science from the University of Michigan in 1990 and a Juris Doctor from Wayne State University Law School in 1994.

In 2005, Dana Nessel opened her legal firm, Dana Nessel and Kessel Law, where she handled criminal defense cases, civil rights actions, family law matters, and general tort litigation.

In 2018, Dana Nessel won the Democratic Party nomination for Michigan Attorney General over former US Attorney for Western Michigan Patrick Miles Jr.

Dana Nessel succeeded term-limited Republican Bill Schuette who ran unsuccessfully for the office of Governor.

Dana Nessel is the first openly LGBTQ person elected to statewide office in Michigan.

Dana Nessel is the first Democrat to serve as attorney general since Jennifer Granholm left the office in 2003, sixteen years earlier to become the new Michigan Governor.

Dana Nessel immediately withdrew Michigan from eight federal lawsuits initiated by Schuette involving the separation of church and state, LGBTQ discrimination, environmental protection, and abortion.

Dana Nessel launched a new Conviction Integrity Unit within the Department of Attorney General's Criminal Appellate Division.

Under her Consumer Protection Division, Dana Nessel launched the state's first Payroll Fraud Enforcement Unit to investigate Michigan establishments that illegally misclassify workers or withhold wages and benefits.

Dana Nessel established the Department's Auto Insurance Fraud Unit, which received over 3,000 cases in four months.

In collaboration with the Michigan Supreme Court, Dana Nessel launched the Michigan Elder Abuse Task Force to combat physical abuse, financial exploitation, emotional abuse, and neglect of senior citizens.

In March 2021, Dana Nessel decided not to launch a criminal investigation into the impact of Governor Gretchen Whitmer's coronavirus pandemic policy of placing elderly patients who tested positive for COVID-19 in the same nursing home facilities as patients who did not contract coronavirus.

Dana Nessel started a statewide campaign to crack down on illegal robocalls targeting Michigan residents.

Additionally, Nessel joined a bipartisan group of state attorneys general in filing a brief in the US Supreme Court in Barr v American Assn.

On March 2,2023, Dana Nessel announced that she was among several Jewish government officials targeted in antisemitic threats made on social media by a heavily armed Michigan man.

Dana Nessel charged two former university employees and one former university employee.

In 2019, Dana Nessel said her department is at an impasse with MSU as they continue to withhold more than 6,000 documents under the claim of attorney-client privilege.

In June 2019, Dana Nessel filed suit independently in Ingham County Circuit Court, seeking an order requiring Line 5 to shut down "after reasonable notice"; the suit argues that the operation of Line 5 violates the public trust doctrine, is a common-law public nuisance, and violates the Michigan Environmental Protection Act because of its likeliness to cause pollution to and destruction of the Great Lakes and other natural resources.

On June 13,2019, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel's office dismissed all pending criminal cases tied to the Flint water crisis.

Dana Nessel has since opened the first ever satellite location of the Attorney General's Office in Flint.

Dana Nessel filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state of Michigan in December 2019 against opioid distributors using a law to pursue drug dealers.

Dana Nessel said that Michigan is the first state to sue drug manufacturers in this way.

Shortly after taking office, Dana Nessel changed state policy to require that contracts with adoption agencies refusing to work directly with LGBT couples be terminated; previously, such agencies had been allowed to refer LGBT couples to different adoption agencies.

The St Vincent adoption agency, a Catholic organization, sued Dana Nessel, asking to be allowed to continue operating under state contract as before the new policy.

Shortly after assuming office, Dana Nessel joined a coalition of other attorneys general in a lawsuit to support the Affordable Care Act.

Dana Nessel announced in January 2022 that after a months-long inquiry into the Michigan participants in the Trump fake electors plot, she had closed down the state probe and asked the US Justice Department to open a criminal investigation.

On July 18,2023, Dana Nessel announced that she had indicted sixteen individuals with eight felony counts each, including forgery.

Dana Nessel proposed to Maguire in 2015 outside of the United States Supreme Court.