In response to a question from NR, Trump said he plans to sue California to stop Newsom’s end run around the state’s redistricting commission.
President Donald Trump said Monday that his Department of Justice will be filing a lawsuit to stop California Governor Gavin Newsom’s push to redraw the state’s congressional map in a way that favors Democrats.
Addressing reporters during an executive order signing ceremony in the Oval Office, Trump was asked by National Review’s Audrey Fahlberg whether his administration had any role to play in fighting back against Newsom’s push to make an end-run around California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission.
“Well I think I’m going to be filing a lawsuit pretty soon and I think we’re going to be very successful in it. We’re going to be filing it through the Department of Justice. That’s going to happen,” Trump said.
Newsom began threatening earlier this summer to redraw California’s congressional map in response to the mid-decade redistricting push under way in Texas, which is intended to give Republicans five additional seats in the closely divided House of Representatives.
When Trump told Texas Republicans in June that he wanted a redrawn map with five additional seats, Newsom responded on X, “two can play at that game.”
But because California law vests an independent regulatory commission with redrawing congressional district lines, Newsom and Democrats in the California legislature must receive permission from the voters via a constitutional amendment before they can redraw districts along more partisan lines. A bill placing the question on the ballot in November passed the legislature earlier this month.
The question that will be put to voters in November is whether to suspend the bipartisan commission until after the 2030 census, allowing Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento the opportunity to respond in-kind to the Texas Republicans’ gerrymandering efforts for the 2026, 2028, and 2030 cycles.
The ballot measure divides the California electorate, with 48 percent of respondents to a recent UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll saying they support the measure while 36 percent say they oppose the move and 20 percent were undecided.
It’s unclear exactly what Trump’s impending suit will allege. The federal government’s primary leverage over the administration of elections is provided by the Voting Rights Act, though challenging Newsom’s efforts using that statute would require Trump’s Justice Department to argue that the redrawn congressional lines are discriminatory. Alternatively, the Justice Department might argue that the counting of illegal immigrants as part of congressional apportionment violates the one-man-one-vote principle.
The DOJ did not respond to a request for clarification on what exactly the suit will allege.
After addressing Newsom’s redistricting effort, Trump also said that he planned to file a separate lawsuit challenging the right of U.S. Senators to veto district court and U.S. attorney appointees, a precedent known as “blue slipping.”
“We’re also going to be filing a suit on blue slipping. You know blue slipping makes it impossible for me as president to appoint a judge or U.S. attorney because they have a gentleman’s agreement — it’s nothing memorialized, it’s a gentleman’s agreement that’s about a hundred years old — where if you have a president like a Republican and you have a Democrat senator, that senator can stop you from appointing a judge or a U.S. attorney.”
Trump has in recent weeks pressured Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to do away with the blue slipping precedent after the interim status of U.S. Attorney of New Jersey, Alina Habba, expired without Habba having received Senate confirmation.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann ruled that Alina Habba “is not lawfully holding the office of United States Attorney” in New Jersey, arguing that she has lacked legal authority since her interim status expired on July 1.
Trump continued to harangue Grassley on social media, though the Iowa Republican does not appear willing to back down.
“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 has pointed out that a nominee who fails to secure a so-called blue slip from their home state senators would not receive sufficient votes to be confirmed in the upper chamber.