Standing to Enjoin State Constitutional Provisions Requires Defendant-Specific Enforcement Authority, Not General Executive Duty

1. Introduction

Michigan voters adopted “Proposal 3,” adding Article I, § 28 to the Michigan Constitution to recognize a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom,” including decisions “about all matters relating to pregnancy,” expressly listing contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care. After § 28 took effect, Michigan courts struck down several preexisting state laws as unconstitutional under the new state constitutional provision.

Sixteen plaintiffs sued Michigan’s Governor (Gretchen Whitmer), Attorney General (Dana Nessel), and Secretary of State (Jocelyn Benson) in their official capacities, seeking to enjoin “enforcement” of § 28 on federal constitutional grounds (First and Fourteenth Amendments). The district court dismissed for lack of standing. On appeal, only five plaintiffs remained, pressing a theory centered on alleged infringements of parental rights.

The core jurisdictional question was not whether § 28 had real-world consequences, but whether these plaintiffs plausibly alleged that their alleged injuries were (i) fairly traceable to these defendants and (ii) likely redressable by an injunction against them—given the complaint’s limited allegations about what each official could or would do to enforce § 28.

2. Summary of the Opinion

Although defendants principally argued plaintiffs lacked an injury in fact, the court bypassed that dispute and resolved the appeal on the second and third standing elements. The complaint, the panel held, did not identify a defendant-specific enforcement mechanism for § 28 that could be enjoined in a way that would redress plaintiffs’ asserted harms. The court emphasized that federal courts can enjoin defendants from unlawful actions, but cannot “enjoin challenged laws themselves.”

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

Universal Life Church Monastery Storehouse v. Nabors, 35 F.4th 1021 (6th Cir. 2022)

The panel treated Universal Life Church as the controlling Sixth Circuit articulation of what a plaintiff must plead to establish traceability in suits seeking to enjoin state officials: “specific, plausible allegations about what the [defendant] has done, is doing, or might do to injure plaintiffs.” The court used this case to reject the complaint’s reliance on generalized job descriptions (“head of the executive branch,” “top lawyer for the state,” “sworn to uphold the constitution”) as substitutes for allegations of concrete enforcement conduct or threatened enforcement.

In other words, Universal Life Church supplied the pleading-level yardstick: without a plausible enforcement pathway connecting the officer to the asserted injury, standing fails even if the underlying legal change is significant.

Thole v. U.S. Bank N.A., 590 U.S. 538 (2020)

Thole was cited for the standard three-part standing test: (1) injury in fact, (2) traceability, and (3) redressability. The Sixth Circuit’s analysis leaned on Thole to frame why it could affirm without deciding injury in fact: even assuming an injury, plaintiffs still had to connect it to the defendants and show the requested injunction would likely fix it.

Waskul v. Washtenaw Cnty. Cmty. Mental Health, 900 F.3d 250 (6th Cir. 2018)

Waskul appears in the court’s reasoning to underscore a “fit” requirement between the defendant’s alleged enforcement responsibilities and the plaintiff’s theory of harm. The panel concluded that plaintiffs’ references to the Governor’s and Attorney General’s potential roles under the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA) and Michigan Consumer Protection Act (MCPA) did not advance the appealed theory (parental rights), because the complaint tied those statutes to “enforcement as to medical professionals,” not to school-based or parent-child contexts.

Thus, Waskul was used to reject standing theories that rely on enforcement authority irrelevant to the particular injury being litigated.

Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 573 U.S. 149 (2014)

Susan B. Anthony List supplied the doctrinal bridge for pre-enforcement challenges: plaintiffs can have standing before an enforcement action occurs, but they must show a credible threat (or at least plausible allegations) of enforcement. The panel cited it to highlight what was missing here: plaintiffs did not identify a single threatened or actual enforcement action by the Governor or Attorney General against them that would plausibly chill conduct or otherwise cause concrete harm.

First Choice Women's Res. Centers, Inc. v. Davenport, 146 S. Ct. 1114 (2026)

The court cited First Choice as a contemporaneous illustration of what adequate traceability and redressability can look like in practice: subpoenas with penalties for noncompliance and an Attorney General’s threat of additional charges created a sufficiently concrete enforcement posture to support standing. By contrast, the plaintiffs here pleaded no analogous enforcement lever—no subpoena, prosecution threat, administrative action, or other specific step attributable to any named defendant.

Functionally, First Choice served as the counterexample that sharpened the pleading deficiency in Right to Life of Mich..

Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson, 595 U.S. 30 (2021)

Whole Woman’s Health was central to the opinion’s conceptual structure: federal courts “may enjoin named defendants from taking specified unlawful actions,” but cannot “enjoin challenged laws themselves,” and plaintiffs must “direct [the] Court to [some] enforcement authority [defendants] possess[] ... that a federal court might enjoin [them] from exercising.”

The Sixth Circuit used Whole Woman’s Health to dispose of two key moves by plaintiffs:

• “The state must protect and enforce” language is not enough. Plaintiffs relied on § 28(2)’s statement that Michigan “shall not discriminate in the protection or enforcement” of the right. The panel treated this as too abstract to identify any particular defendant’s enforceable power.
• Downstream invalidation of laws does not establish standing against these officers. Plaintiffs argued their harms “flow” from § 28 because other abortion restrictions were invalidated under it. The court held that this shows at most that the law has effects; it does not show that these defendants are causing the injury in a way an injunction against them would remedy.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

The opinion is a standing decision built around two limits on federal equitable power and Article III:

• General executive obligations are not a jurisdictional hook. The Governor’s and Attorney General’s general duties to uphold Michigan law did not, without more, establish that plaintiffs’ alleged injuries were “fairly traceable” to them. The court required plausible allegations of what each official “has done, is doing, or might do” to cause the injury.
• Relief must run against a defendant’s conduct, not against a legal text in the abstract. The panel treated the requested injunction as conceptually mis-aimed: plaintiffs wanted to stop “enforcement” of a constitutional amendment, but failed to identify a defendant-specific enforcement mechanism to enjoin—especially where they also failed to show that an injunction against these officials would likely change plaintiffs’ situation (redressability).

Applying these principles defendant by defendant:

• Governor Whitmer: Allegations of general executive leadership and oath-based duties were insufficient. References to ELCRA did not connect to the parental-rights theory on appeal and lacked any pleaded, concrete enforcement step.
• Attorney General Nessel: Allegations of general supervisory legal authority were insufficient. References to MCPA similarly did not connect to the parental-rights injuries and lacked any threatened or actual enforcement action.
• Secretary Benson: The complaint alleged only her role in ballot-initiative procedures culminating in § 28’s adoption. The court held that such procedural involvement does not establish enforcement responsibility; without enforcement authority, traceability and redressability both fail.

A noteworthy feature of the reasoning is its insistence on matching (i) the plaintiff’s harm theory, (ii) the defendant’s actual enforcement authority, and (iii) the remedy’s capacity to meaningfully change the plaintiff’s position. The panel treated mismatch in any one of these as fatal to standing.

3.3 Impact

Although designated “not recommended for publication,” the decision signals (and applies) a stringent, pleading-focused approach to standing in constitutional challenges to state-law innovations—particularly where plaintiffs attempt to sue high-level officials to reach a statewide legal change without identifying a concrete enforcement pathway.

Likely effects include:

• More targeted defendant selection: Future plaintiffs challenging state constitutional rights provisions (including reproductive-rights provisions) in federal court will need to identify the specific official(s) who wield enforceable authority affecting them—e.g., an agency head, licensing authority, prosecutor with relevant jurisdiction, or school official—rather than relying on the Governor/Attorney General by default.
• Greater emphasis on enforcement facts: Complaints will need to plead threatened/actual enforcement steps (letters, guidance, investigations, subpoenas, disciplinary proceedings, prosecution warnings) aligning with the specific injury theory, to fit within pre-enforcement standing principles.
• Limits on “structural” challenges to constitutional amendments: The opinion reinforces that federal courts are not venues for abstract review of a legal text untethered from an enjoinable enforcement action—especially where a provision operates indirectly by influencing how other laws are interpreted or invalidated in state court.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Article III “standing”

Standing is the constitutional requirement that a plaintiff have a real stake in the dispute. The court focused on two components:

• Traceability: The injury must be fairly attributable to the defendant you sued, not merely to the existence of a law or to third parties.
• Redressability: The court must be able to likely fix the injury through the specific order you requested against the specific defendants.

Why “the Governor enforces the laws” is usually not enough

Many state officials have broad supervisory responsibility, but federal injunctions require a concrete, enjoinable act (or credible threat of one). Without identifying what the official will do to you—and how stopping that act would help you—standing fails.

“You can’t enjoin the law itself”

Federal courts generally issue orders against people (officials) and their actions, not against legal texts in the abstract. If no named defendant has a specific enforcement role that affects the plaintiff, there is no proper target for injunctive relief.

5. Conclusion

Right to Life of Mich. v. Gretchen Whitmer is a defendant-and-remedy-centered standing decision: even where a state constitutional amendment produces significant legal change, federal plaintiffs must plausibly allege a concrete enforcement connection between their harms and the particular officials they sue, and must show that an injunction against those officials would likely redress those harms. Generalized assertions of executive duty, abstract “state shall enforce” language, and downstream consequences from state-court invalidations of other laws do not substitute for defendant-specific enforcement authority and enforcement facts.