President Trump during a winding press event Monday at the White House vowed to file lawsuits against California over its plan to redraw the state’s congressional lines and against the use of blue slips in the Senate.
The president told reporters a lawsuit will be filed “soon” after California’s Democratic-controlled Legislature formally approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-Calif.) plan Thursday to redraw the state’s congressional lines, setting it up to appear on the ballot in November.
“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 in the Oval Office.
He added that he wants to address blue slipping, a practice that allows home-state senators to veto nominees to district courts and U.S. attorneys’ offices.
“We’re also going to be filing a lawsuit on blue slipping. 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,” Trump said.
“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,” he added.
Trump on Sunday escalated his criticism of Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for his unwillingness to overhaul the blue slip process after he was forced to withdraw the nomination of his former defense lawyer, Alina Habba, to serve as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey. The state’s Democratic senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, opposed her nomination.
The president on Monday railed against the practice, arguing he can only get Democrats approved as U.S. attorneys.
“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. And this is based on an old custom, its not based on a law, and I think it’s unconstitutional, and I’ll probably be filing a suit on that soon.”
Senate Judiciary Committee chairs traditionally haven’t proceeded on federal district-level judicial and prosecutorial nominees unless both senators representing the state where those districts are located return blue-slip documents signing off on the nominees.
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