Trump Says DOJ Will Sue California Over Newsom’s Redistricting Push

President Donald Trump announced Monday that his administration plans to take legal action against California Governor Gavin Newsom’s attempt to reshape the state’s congressional districts in a way that benefits Democrats.

Speaking in the Oval Office during the signing of an executive order, Trump was asked by National Review reporter Audrey Fahlberg whether his administration would intervene against Newsom’s challenge to California’s independent redistricting process.

“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 first raised the idea earlier this summer after Texas Republicans moved forward with a mid-decade redistricting effort designed to secure five additional GOP seats in the narrowly divided House of Representatives. In response to Trump’s June call for Texas to redraw its map, Newsom posted on X, “two can play at that game.”

National Review explains that California, however, operates under a system that grants redistricting authority to an independent citizens’ commission. For Newsom and state Democrats to take control of the process, voters would need to approve a constitutional amendment. Lawmakers recently advanced a measure that places the proposal on the November ballot.

If approved, the ballot measure would pause the independent commission until after the 2030 census, giving Democrats in Sacramento the ability to counter Texas Republicans’ efforts during the 2026, 2028, and 2030 election cycles.

The Justice Department could pursue a case under the Voting Rights Act, which would require showing that the proposed maps discriminate against protected groups. Another possible angle would be to argue that including undocumented immigrants in congressional apportionment violates the “one person, one vote” principle. The DOJ declined to comment on the specifics of the forthcoming lawsuit.

In addition to targeting Newsom’s plan, Trump revealed he intends to challenge the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition, which allows senators to block judicial and U.S. attorney nominees from their states. “We’re also going to be filing a suit on blue slipping,” Trump said. “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.”