Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel danced onstage at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night, as she took the stand in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’s bid for president. 

“Let me tell you, being attorney general is a tough job, right? But as California’s attorney general, Kamala Harris never shied away from a good fight. She’s held accountable environmental polluters, sexual abusers and transnational gangs,” Nessel said to the crowd in Chicago. 

“What really stands out is when she stood up and protected her constituents’ freedoms. In 2011, she refused to defend California’s ban on same-sex marriage. She refused to argue that some families should have fewer rights than other families. It meant a lot. She was fighting for families like mine,” Nessel said. 

She said Harris also offered her support when Roe v. Wade was overturned, resurrecting Michigan’s 1931 ban on abortion, as Nessel pledged not to enforce or defend the law. 

“[Harris] reminded me that protecting people’s lives and defending their rights is our job, and just as the same sex marriage ban was overturned in California, so, too, was the abortion ban in Michigan,” Nessel said. 

 

Prior to her election as attorney general in 2018 — where she became the first LGBTQ+ person to win a top statewide office in Michigan — Nessel as a private attorney took on Michigan’s ban on same-sex marriage. That case was rolled into Obergefell v. Hobbs, which was taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2015, the court legalized same-sex marriage, which allowed Nessel to marry her partner, Alanna Maguire.

“By the way, I’ve got a message for the Republicans and the justices of the United States Supreme Court, you can pry this wedding ban from my cold, dead, gay hand. I know that whether she’s attorney general or president of the United States, Kamala Harris will always be in our corner,” Nessel said Wednesday night.

While presenting her closing statement, Nessel asked the audience to be the judge of how the nation will move forward. 

“Do we go back to the corruption, criminality and chaos of Donald Trump? Or do we move forward with Kamala Harris? We know when she takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, she’s actually read it. We know that she’ll appoint Supreme Court justices who will protect our freedoms,” Nessel said.

“And let me tell you Kamala knows you go from the courthouse to the White House, not the other way around,” Nessel said. “Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.”