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Lawsuit Targets Michigan Emergency Manager Law

LANSING (AP) - Another legal challenge has been filed against a Michigan law that gives state-appointed emergency managers more power over the financially struggling schools and communities they're assigned to run.

The Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice says Wednesday that a lawsuit filed in an Ingham County court is an effort to get the measure declared unconstitutional.

The revised law lets emergency managers strip power from locally elected leaders and scrap union contracts. Opponents say it's a state power grab that effectively eliminates citizens' rights to petition local government on local matters.

City of Detroit pension boards have sued in federal court seeking to block the measures signed into law in March. Another group has started a petition drive aimed at allowing voters to decide whether to repeal the law.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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