Who Counts As A Daughter? Breaking News
Updated: 5d
The Martha Laird Chapter Takes Its Fight to Court
Who Counts as a Daughter? First published 2 November 2026
This post will be updated as documents surface.
Update, 4 November 2026: On 2 November at 3:37 p.m., Judge Angela Saucier of the 76th District Court in Titus County signed a temporary restraining order in this case, Cause No. 44639. It bars the national and Texas societies from taking the chapter's funds, records, or corporate governance, and provisionally restores the chapter's status until a hearing on November 9. That answers this post's question about which court and when. I cover the order in a new post.
On Monday, November 2, 2026, at 8:44 a.m. local time, the Martha Laird Chapter of Mount Pleasant, Texas, filed suit in the district court of Titus County, Texas. It named two defendants: the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution and the Texas Society Daughters of the American Revolution. Its lawyers, from the Heritage Foundation's Legal Action Center, asked the court to stop both organizations from dissolving the chapter or taking its funds, about $16,000, before a November 9 deadline, and to restore the chapter to the Society's rolls while the case proceeds.¹
A word on evidence first. When I began this dispatch, I had only press accounts and Heritage's announcement. Heritage has since posted the petition and its seventeen exhibits, including the Society's own letters to the chapter. Most of what follows therefore carries this series' "Documented" label. Where I rely on one side's characterization, I say so.
What the petition asks
The first count, against the National Society alone, says the disbandment itself was invalid. The chapter argues that the Society never identified a bylaw it had broken, never warned that disbandment was under consideration, and never gave it a hearing before the National Board of Management voted on October 10.² The petition concedes that Texas courts ordinarily stay out of the internal affairs of voluntary associations. It argues, though, that courts step in when property rights, basic procedural fairness, or the limits of an association's own rules are at stake, and it cites older Texas cases in which national bodies were overruled for disciplining local units without charges, notice, and a hearing.³ It also calls the Society's stated reason a pretext for punishing the chapter's advocacy.⁴
The second count, against both defendants, treats the chapter as a corporation. The petition says the chapter is a separately incorporated, member-managed Texas nonprofit, and that losing its standing as a DAR chapter neither dissolves that corporation nor hands its property to the Texas Society.⁵ It leans on the National Society's own bylaws, which describe chapters as "independent legal entities from the National Society."⁶ The chapter's bylaws do send its assets to the state society "upon the dissolution of the chapter," but the petition argues that a national board's disbandment is not the same thing as a corporate dissolution under Texas law.⁷ Lea Patterson, the Legal Action Center's senior litigation counsel, put the point more bluntly to the Daily Wire: "You cannot dissolve a Texas corporation simply by sending a letter from Washington."⁸
The relief requested is broad. The chapter asks for an immediate order freezing any transfer of its funds, records, and property, and a second, mandatory order requiring the Society to reinstate it provisionally, with a hearing it hopes to have before November 9. Beyond that, it seeks temporary and permanent injunctions, declarations that the disbandment is void and that its corporation and property remain its own, attorney's fees, and a jury trial. It seeks no compensatory damages.⁹
Two further features deserve highlighting. First, the petition says that it does not ask the court to decide who is eligible for membership in the DAR.¹⁰ Second, its account of the past two years reaches well beyond the disbandment. It says 68 chapters in 27 states had asked the President General to call a special meeting by April 2026, more than double the bylaws' threshold of 30 chapters in ten states, and that about 250 had done so by October. It alleges that national leadership gave notice that the resolution would come up at the June Continental Congress only after the deadline for registering delegates had passed, presented an outside attorney's opinion about the District of Columbia's public-accommodations law while barring proponents from offering contrary analysis, and summarized the resolution instead of reading it.¹¹
These are allegations. Several can be tested against the floor record, and I will do that in a separate post.
What the Society has said
At publishing of this post, the Society has not responded publicly to the lawsuit. But the exhibits include its letters to the chapter, which set out its position in its own words.
On 21 August 2026, President General Ginnie Sebastian Storage and Organizing Secretary General Marguerite Fritsch asked the chapter for nearly two years of records. They asked how the chapter related to Daughters Advocating for Restoration; whether the chapter's name, officer titles, or email account had been used in Restoration's activities, including a March 2025 letter to President Trump and a "Resolute Chapter" tracking system; who had retained and paid for earlier legal and parliamentary advice; and whether the chapter had helped develop or promote H.R. 9701 and S. 5152. The letter said the Society was not questioning any chapter's right to adopt a resolution, and that it had reached no conclusion.¹²
Enclosed with that request was a new Executive Committee statement on chapter identity, dated August 2026. It draws a line between advocacy, which members and outside groups may pursue freely, and a chapter's official participation in an outside organization's system for organizing or reporting chapter actions. In its words, "The question is not what position the chapter takes."¹³ The chapter's position is that the statement appeared just as the investigation began and was then applied to conduct that predated it.¹⁴
After the October 10 vote, the President General wrote to the chapter's members that the Board had found chapter officers had used the chapter's name, leadership positions, communications, and governance processes to advance a separate advocacy organization, and that the same standard would apply regardless of viewpoint. Members kept their individual memberships.¹⁵ On October 27, the Society rejected the chapter's appeal. Its letter argues that Article XIX, Section 4 provides no charging or hearing procedure for chapters like the one it provides for individual members; that the chapter had repeated chances to respond but declined to provide significant portions of what was requested; and that the chapter's own bylaws require its assets to go to the Texas Society.¹⁶ The Texas Society's treasurer had already told the chapter, on October 10, to refund members' 2027 dues, send the balance of its checking account to the state society by November 9, and delete its social media accounts. The state society disabled the chapter's website.¹⁷
The dispute is now over process. The chapter says it was never charged with anything specific. The Society says its bylaws require no charge or hearing for a chapter, and that it asked its questions and received only partial answers.
The chapter, the corporation, and Restoration
The relationship between the chapter and The Daughters Advocating for Restoration sits at the center of the case, and the documents now show both sides.
This chapter has existed since 1942. The corporation that is suing was formed on 1 November 2024, two months after the chapter submitted its first bylaw amendment. Because the National Society's bylaws already treat chapters as separate legal entities, incorporation itself is unremarkable. Neither the petition nor the certificate of formation, which the chapter's regent signed and filed on 30 October 2024, says why the chapter incorporated when it did; the certificate contains no provision on dissolution.¹⁸
The chapter has also not always drawn the line between chapter and corporation as sharply as its petition does. In its October 19 appeal to the Society, the regent wrote that the chapter bylaws' dissolution clause appeared to tie the corporation's existence directly to its status as a chapter. She called that a legal question, said she was not sure of the answer, and asked the Society how to proceed. A layperson's letter is not a legal brief, and lawyers routinely sharpen a client's position. Still, the gap between that letter and the petition filed two weeks later is worth noting.¹⁸
On Restoration, the petition is candid. It says Laura McDonald started the Restoration Facebook group, that a single chapter member later incorporated Restoration as a Texas nonprofit, and that Restoration's leadership includes two chapter members. It insists the two organizations are separate and that Restoration plays no role in the chapter's operations.¹⁹ In September, the chapter told the Society that it had no relationship with Restoration, in letters McDonald signed as the chapter's treasurer.²⁰ An April 2025 open letter on Restoration's website carries her earlier chapter title, recording secretary.²¹ According to the Society's August letter, Restoration's published instructions told chapters that adopted the resolution to send it to the chapter's email account. The chapter, for its part, attested that the account is used solely for official DAR business.²²
Today's fundraising post adds one more piece. In Restoration's public Facebook group, McDonald thanked Heritage for representing the chapter pro bono and launched a $20,000 matching-donation challenge running through November 15, while stating that the money is "not being raised in connection with the Martha Laird Chapter's disbandment."²³ The post does not say who is funding the match.
Whether all of this amounts to individual advocacy, which the Society says it permits, or institutional conduct, which it says it may discipline, is a question the court may be asked to weigh.
Readers of the documents can weigh it too.
A third venue
Step back and look at the arc of 2026. In June, the question of who counts as a Daughter was answered where the bylaws place it: delegates in Constitution Hall voted down the resolution to define "woman." (See Post 2). In July, Representative Ben Cline introduced H.R. 9701 to write a definition of "woman" into the Society's federal charter.²⁴ Heritage Action for America, the Heritage Foundation's affiliated advocacy organization, was among the groups quoted endorsing it.²⁵ Now Heritage's own litigation arm, launched in July 2026,²⁶ represents the chapter in what Heritage calls the center's first affirmative lawsuit.²⁷ The Society itself had already connected these venues: its August request asked whether the chapter had a hand in the federal bills.¹²
Now, the court is not being asked who may join the DAR; the petition says so. Which is both surprising and not surprising at the same time. It asks whether the national board could disband this chapter this way, and whether the national and state societies can take its treasury. But the disbandment exists only because of the membership fight. In five months, a question the Society's governing documents assign to its own members has moved from Capitol Hill to a courthouse. As earlier posts in this series showed, the charter Congress granted in 1896 never contained a membership provision; through every rewrite, Congress left membership to the Society.²⁸
The petition states a version of that point itself. It describes the National Society as a "federally chartered private corporation" and then argues the entire case under Texas law. The precedent it calls closely analogous is a 1934 Texas decision that, as the petition describes it, rejected a state American Legion organization's claim to a local post's property; the Legion, too, holds a congressional charter.²⁹ In the courtroom, the federal charter is background. In Congress, the same charter is the proposed lever.
Heritage's announcement casts the Society's national officers as "leaders in a distant capital."²⁷ The capital meant is the Society's headquarters, not Capitol Hill, though it is the same city where H.R. 9701 awaits action in committee. Still, the two arguments now advanced by Heritage and its affiliate share a subject: which level of authority gets the last word over a private association. In Texas, the argument is that a distant national body cannot reach down and dissolve a local one by letter. In Congress, the argument is that the most distant authority of all should define whom the national body may admit, setting aside a vote of its own members.
Supporters of both efforts would answer that no contradiction exists. The consistent principle, they would say, is substantive: a women's organization should be for women, and members who say so should not be punished for it. That is a coherent position. But it is a principle about outcomes, and outcomes change hands. Roughly ninety organizations hold federal charters under Title 36, and Congress that defines membership for one can define it for others, in directions the bill's supporters may not welcome.
That is why a dispute that first looked like an internal squabble deserves the attention of anyone in a voluntary association.
The pattern in the rollout
If you have been following, there is a recognizable pattern here. In July, the bill debuted as a "First on Fox" exclusive on the day it was introduced, with its endorsing organizations listed.³⁰ November 2, it followed a similar sequence, compressed into a single morning. The petition was filed at 8:44 a.m. Central Time. The Daily Wire's exclusive went online shortly before 11 a.m. Eastern, about an hour later, with statements from counsel and a chapter member.⁸ Between roughly 11:25 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. Eastern, McDonald posted the fundraising appeal,²³ and Representative Cline posted to Facebook promoting H.R. 9701 under the banner "A Legacy Worth Protecting." His post did not mention the lawsuit.³¹ Heritage's own announcement on X went up at 12:15 p.m.³² The exclusive, in other words, ran more than an hour before Heritage announced its own lawsuit.
In my searches this afternoon, I found no other news coverage of the filing, and none from the wire services or the major national dailies.
One instance is an anecdote. A recurring sequence, in which each escalation arrives first in a single outlet, already framed by one side, before the Society or the wider press can respond, is a disturbing pattern. Today added litigation, fundraising, and a congressman's messaging, all within about three hours of the filing. A pattern is not proof of coordination, and I am not claiming it is. But readers who only see this story through those channels first are being told only one side. ( See Post 11)
Around midday, Carmen Eckard, who has posted on this argument before, published a long public response. She writes of her own Revolutionary War ancestry, says she is joining the DAR, and defends the members' right to govern themselves; by late afternoon the post had drawn more than 350 reactions.³³ The counterargument is circulating, in other words, but on personal social media rather than in news coverage.
Her post also repeats the 1,481–984 tally. As Post 9 in this series documents, that figure traveled from a campaign statement into national coverage, while the tally announced from the dais was 1,474–981. Even critics of the campaign are now citing its numbers.
Heritage's role, now on the record
For months, members on both sides have speculated that the Heritage Foundation was backing the campaign. To say rumors have been flying for months is an understatement. Conversations and social media posts alluded to it, but no concrete proof was ever publicly available. Today's filing settles part of that question. Heritage's support is now documented at two stages. In July, Heritage Action for America, its affiliated advocacy organization, endorsed H.R. 9701 by name.²⁵ In November, Heritage's Legal Action Center filed suit for the chapter; the petition lists the center's director, Justin Butterfield, and its senior litigation counsel, Lea Patterson, as the chapter's counsel.¹ According to Restoration's post, the representation is pro bono.²³
Free representation is never for nothing. Litigation is expensive, and donated legal work is a contribution of professional services with real value, even when no money changes hands. That a new litigation center chose a dispute over a chapter treasury of roughly $16,000 as its first affirmative case also says something about how much this fight matters to Heritage.³⁴
What the record does not yet show is money. No document I have seen shows Heritage, Heritage Action, or anyone acting for them funding the chapter, Restoration, or today's matching challenge, and the matching donor is not named. The Society asked a related question in August: who retained and paid for the chapter's earlier legal memorandum from the Center for American Liberty, and for a professional parliamentarian's work.¹² None of the chapter's responses that I have read answer that question directly.²⁰ These questions can be answered with records rather than rumor.
Heritage's annual IRS Form 990 lists its grants to other organizations, though filings covering 2026 may not be public until 2027 or later. Restoration, according to the petition, is itself a Texas nonprofit corporation, so its state filings, and any federal ones, would show more.¹⁹ Until those records say otherwise, the accurate statement is: Heritage's institutional support is confirmed; its financial support is not yet established.
Heritage's involvement also fits into a larger pattern. A familiar set of organizations recurs across disputes over sex-based membership and participation, from sororities to sports. I take up those documented ties in the companion series Not Just the DAR, which is coming soon.
What we don't know yet
This is a developing story, and much of the record is not yet public or not yet in my hands. These are the open questions I still have, and I will update this post with dated addenda as each one is answered.
Which judge, and when? The filed copy shows no cause number or judicial district. The chapter asked for a hearing before November 9. Whether a judge has signed a restraining order or set a hearing is not yet public.
How will the two societies respond? Neither the National Society nor the Texas Society has responded publicly to the lawsuit.
Why did the chapter incorporate in November 2024? Neither the petition nor the certificate of formation gives the reason.
Who is paying? Who paid for the chapter's earlier legal and parliamentary advice, who is funding the $20,000 match, and does any of Restoration's money come from Heritage or its affiliates?
Does the petition's account of the June vote hold up? Its allegations about notice, legal advice, and how the resolution was presented can be checked against the floor record. I will do that in a separate post.
Will other chapters be next? By the petition's count, about 250 chapters have asked for a special meeting. Some may face similar action, and some may go to court.
Disclosure: I am a DAR member and hold chapter, state, and national roles. My evidence labels and naming rules are explained on the Methods and Disclosure page.
Notes
Plaintiff's Original Petition and Application for Temporary Restraining Order, Application for Temporary Injunction, and Request for Declaratory and Permanent Injunctive Relief, Martha Laird Chapter NSDAR v. National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution and Texas Society Daughters of the American Revolution, Inc. (Dist. Ct. Titus Cnty., Tex., filed 2 November 2026, 8:44 a.m.; cause number not shown on the filed copy), with Exhibits A–Q (hereafter Petition), https://static.heritage.org/2026/MarthaLaird-Petition.pdf.
Petition, ¶¶ 66–71.
Petition, ¶¶ 67–69.
Petition, ¶ 76.
Petition, ¶¶ 9, 23–24, 80–93.
National Society Daughters of the American Revolution Bylaws, art. XIII, § 1, quoted in Petition, ¶¶ 18, 82; see Petition, Exh. B.
Martha Laird Chapter Bylaws, art. XIII, quoted in Petition, ¶ 85; see Petition, Exh. C.
Megan Brock, "They Fought to Keep Men Out of Historic Women's Org. Now They're Fighting Forced Dissolution," Daily Wire, 2 November 2026, https://www.dailywire.com/news/they-fought-to-keep-men-out-of-historic-womens-org-now-theyre-fighting-forced-dissolution.
Petition, ¶¶ 8, 95–112, and prayer.
Petition, ¶ 6.
Petition, ¶¶ 3, 42–49.
Ginnie Sebastian Storage and Marguerite Fritsch to Martha Laird Chapter, 21 August 2026, Petition, Exh. F.
National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, "Statement Concerning Chapter Identity and Members Acting in Multiple Capacities," August 2026, in Petition, Exh. I.
Petition, ¶¶ 56, 73.
Ginnie Sebastian Storage to the members of the Martha Laird Chapter, 12 October 2026, Petition, Exh. N.
Storage and Fritsch to Lani Hightower, 27 October 2026, Petition, Exh. P.
Kathy Crusco, Texas State Treasurer, to Lani Hightower and Laura McDonald, email, 10 October 2026, Petition, Exh. M.
Petition, ¶¶ 9, 22, 33; Certificate of Formation, Martha Laird Chapter NSDAR, filed 30 October 2024, effective November 1, 2024, Petition, Exh. A; Lani Hightower to Storage and Fritsch, 19 October 2026, Petition, Exh. O.
Petition, ¶¶ 38–39.
Martha Laird Chapter to Storage and Fritsch, September 9 and 17 September 2026, Petition, Exhs. I and K.
Laura McDonald, "Open Letter to the North Carolina State Regent," Daughters Advocating for Restoration, posted April 2025, https://daughtersadvocatingrestoration.org/open-letter-to-the-north-carolina-state-regent/.
Storage and Fritsch to Martha Laird Chapter, 21 August 2026, Petition, Exh. F; Martha Laird Chapter to Storage and Fritsch, 17 September 2026, Petition, Exh. K.
Laura McDonald, "Thank you to the Heritage Foundation for representing the Martha Laird Chapter, pro bono . . . ," Daughters Advocating for Restoration (public Facebook group), 2 November 2026; screenshot captured 4:24 p.m. EST, in the author's files.
Daughters of the American Revolution Membership Integrity Act, H.R. 9701, 119th Cong. (2026), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr9701ih/html/BILLS-119hr9701ih.htm.
Office of Representative Ben Cline, "Cline Introduces Legislation to Ensure the DAR's Membership Is Limited to Women," press release, 15 July 2026, https://cline.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2687.
The Heritage Foundation, "The Heritage Foundation Launches Legal Action Center, Names Justin Butterfield as Director," news release, 8 July 2026, https://www.heritage.org/node/25160226.
The Heritage Foundation, "Heritage Foundation Sues to Save Texas Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution from Being Silenced by Pro-Trans HQ," news release, 2 November 2026, https://www.heritage.org/node/25160681.
36 U.S.C. ch. 1531. See Post 5, "What the DAR's Charter Actually Says," and Post 6, "A Century of Charter Rewrites," in this series.
Petition, ¶¶ 10, 88, citing American Legion, William Frank Martin Post No. 185, Department of Texas v. Big Spring Veterans, Inc., 73 S.W.2d 594 (Tex. Civ. App.—Eastland 1934, writ dism'd).
"GOP Rep Ben Cline Introduces Bill to Bar Biological Men from Joining Daughters of the American Revolution," Fox News, 15 July 2026, https://www.foxnews.com/media/exclusive-gop-rep-introduces-bill-bar-biological-men-from-joining-daughters-american-revolution.
Ben Cline (Congressman Ben Cline), "The Daughters of the American Revolution was founded to honor the women who helped build our Nation . . . ," Facebook, 2 November 2026; screenshot captured 4:27 p.m. EST, in the author's files.
The Heritage Foundation (@Heritage), "Today, our Legal Action Center sued the national Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) organization . . . ," X, 2 November 2026, 12:15 p.m.; screenshot captured 4:32 p.m. EST, in the author's files.
Carmen Eckard, "The Heritage Foundation is now suing the Daughters of the American Revolution . . . ," Facebook, 2 November 2026; screenshot captured 4:44 p.m. EST, in the author's files.
Petition, ¶ 26.
