President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the Oval Office of the White House on Monday. He said he plans to sue over California’s congressional redistricting plans and use of blue slips to allow home-state U.S. senators to veto nominees to district courts and U.S. attorneys’ offices. Photo by Al Drago/UPI | License Photo
President Donald Trump said Monday he is planning to sue California over its planned congressional maps and blue slips used in that state and others to allow home-state U.S. senators to veto nominees to district courts and U.S. attorneys’ offices.
Last week, after Texas changed its maps to favor Republicans with five additional seats, California’s Democratic-controlled legislature redrew its maps, though those will face voter approval in November. A non-partisan commission currently redraws California’s maps.
The U.S. House midterms are in 2026.
“I think I’m going to be filing a lawsuit pretty soon, and I think we’re going to be very successful in it,” Trump said in the Oval Office with South Korean President Kim Lee Jae Myung. “We’re going to [be] filing it through the Department of Justice. That’s going to happen.”
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said his state only acted after Texas’ actions, posted on X: “BRING IT.”
Last week, Newsom said on X: “Republicans are determined to rig every rule they can, to break laws, in order to seize power. As Democrats, we have a responsibility to fight back and fight back hard, and that’s what I love about what California is doing.”
Texas’ Senate sent the legislation to Gov. Greg Abbott early Saturday, two days after the House approved it.
On Thursday, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Big WIN for the Great State of Texas!!! Everything Passed, on our way to FIVE more Congressional seats and saving your Rights, your Freedoms, and your Country, itself. Texas never lets us down. Florida, Indiana, and others are looking to do the same thing.”
Trump previously told CNBC that the GOP was “entitled to five more seats” in Texas.
Congressional redistricting is usually done every 10 years after U.S. Census data are released.
Currently, Texas has 38 congressional districts, 25 of which are controlled by Republicans.
In California, Democrats hold a 43-9 advantage, and the new maps are designed to add five more seats for their party.
Other states, controlled by Republicans and Democrats, are also considering redrawing their maps.
The Republicans currently hold a 219-212 advantage with vacancies from the deaths of three Democrats and one GOP member who resigned.
Blue slips
In the U.S. Senate, which is controlled by Republicans 53-47, they confirm judges and U.S. attorneys.
“We’re also going to be filing a lawsuit on blue slipping,” Trump said in the White House. “You know, blue slips make it impossible for me as president to appoint a judge or a U.S. attorney because they have a gentleman’s agreement, nothing memorialized, it’s a gentleman’s agreement that’s about 100 years old where if you have a president, like a Republican, and if you have a Democrat senator, that senator can stop you from appointing a judge or a U.S. attorney in particular, those two.”
Since 1917, the president sends blue-color forms to the two senators representing the nominee’s state. If one senator objects, “since the use of blue slips is not codified or included in the committee’s rules, the chairman of the committee has the discretion to determine the extent to which a home state Senator’s negative or withheld blue slip stops a President’s judicial nomination from receiving consideration by the committee and, consequently, whether it reaches the Senate floor.”
California has two Democratic senators.
“You’ll be hearing about the blue slipping. Because if you have — you don’t need two senators, you just need one Democrat senator with a Republican,” Trump said.
On Sunday, Trump criticized Republican Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, for not changing the process as Judiciary Committee chairman.
Trump had to withdraw the nomination of his defense attorney, Alina Habba, as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey because of opposition by the state’s Democrats, Cory Booker and Andy Kim.
On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that Habba, a temporary pick up to 120 days, was unlawfully serving as the top federal prosecutor in the state.
“I have a Constitutional Right to appoint Judges and U.S. Attorneys, but that RIGHT has been completely taken away from me in States that have just one Democrat United States Senator,” Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social. “This is because of an old and outdated ‘custom’ known as a BLUE SLIP, that Senator Chuck Grassley, of the Great State of Iowa, refuses to overturn, even though the Democrats, including Crooked Joe Biden (Twice!), have done so on numerous occasions.
“Therefore, the only candidates that I can get confirmed for these most important positions are, believe it or not, Democrats! Chuck Grassley should allow strong Republican candidates to ascend to these very vital and powerful roles, and tell the Democrats, as they often tell us, to go to HELL!”
Grassley said there aren’t even enough votes for Habba to be confirmed.
“A U.S. Atty/district judge nominee without a blue slip does not hv the votes to get confirmed on the Senate floor & they don’t hv the votes to get out of cmte. As chairman I set Pres Trump noms up for SUCCESS NOT FAILURE,” he posted Monday on X.
Trump had 234 federal judges in his first four-year term confirmed, including three Supreme Court justices, but so far only five in his first seven months in his second term have been approved.
