President Trump said Monday that he intends to file lawsuits against California and the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition, escalating fights over redistricting and judicial nominations.
Speaking at the White House, Trump told reporters that his administration will sue California after its Democratic-controlled legislature approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to redraw congressional districts. He claimed the lawsuit would be filed “soon” through the Department of Justice and predicted success.
Trump also said he plans to target the century-old Senate practice of blue slipping, which allows home-state senators to veto judicial and U.S. attorney nominees. He argued the system unfairly blocks Republican presidents from making appointments in states with Democratic senators. “It’s a gentleman’s agreement, nothing memorialized, about 100 years old,” Trump said. “I think it’s unconstitutional, and I’ll probably be filing a suit on that soon.”
The president has grown increasingly frustrated with the process, singling out Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for not moving to scrap it. His anger intensified after he withdrew the nomination of Alina Habba, his former defense lawyer, for a federal prosecutor role in New Jersey. The state’s Democratic senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, opposed her nomination, blocking it under the blue slip custom.
Trump argued that the practice leaves him unable to secure Republican nominees for key legal posts. “The only person I will be able to get approved in any of those states where you have a Democrat, I can’t get a U.S. attorney, I can only get a Democrat U.S. attorney,” he said. “And this is based on an old custom, not based on a law.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.