Earlier this week, my law firm and I filed a lawsuit to stop Donald Trump’s latest power grab and protect the midterm elections.

We are suing on behalf of the DSCC, the DCCC, the DGA, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the Nevada State Democratic Party and a California voter who became a naturalized citizen 20 years ago and has voted ever since.

Republicans know they are losing.

Trump’s approval rating is plummeting. The GOP’s money advantage may buy more ads, but it cannot convince the American people that Trump hasn’t betrayed them.

House Republicans have given up on holding the majority, and Senate Democrats are poised to do what, until recently, was viewed as impossible: win the majority.

In a final, desperate effort, Trump has turned his administration into a voter suppression war machine.

He started with extreme gerrymandering. He tried to co-opt the U.S. Postal Service to take control of mail voting. He sued more than 30 states to seize their voter rolls. He begged the Senate GOP to pass the SAVE America Act.

All those efforts failed.

Courts blocked the Postal Service scheme. All 26 courts that ruled on Trump’s voter roll lawsuits threw them out. Congress never passed his disenfranchisement bill.

Now he is escalating his attacks on our elections and the people who run them. He is asserting powers he does not have and trampling on the constitutional role of the states.

Earlier this week, I called it a constitutional crisis. Now I am fighting back.

The heart of my law firm’s case is plain. The Constitution’s Elections Clause gives states the power to decide how elections are run. This includes the power to set rules for registering voters, casting ballots, and counting them.

Only Congress can override those decisions. In this area, the president has no powers beyond those Congress has specifically granted.

Those powers are limited. The executive branch can bring civil suits to enforce the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act, and it can prosecute violations of federal criminal law. That’s it.

Our lawsuit lays out how Trump and his cronies have systematically sought to expand their powers beyond those Congress provided. In short, they want to dictate election administration and use threats to make it stick.

On July 7, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon sent letters to every state warning that officials could face criminal prosecution for keeping noncitizens on their rolls. States were given five days to explain how they would comply.

On July 16, DHS sent letters to several states, including California, Nevada and Pennsylvania, claiming that large numbers of noncitizens were on their rolls. The next day, DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin publicly warned that officials who failed to act could face fines, penalties, and even prison time.

Those numbers soon fell apart. In Nevada, DHS claimed that nearly 16,000 noncitizens were on the rolls. By mid-August, it had cut that figure to 185 voters it said were “confirmed” noncitizens. Nevada’s own records showed that all 185 were citizens.

On Oct. 13, the DOJ launched a full-scale attack on California.

It sent Los Angeles County a thumb drive listing more than 20,000 people it claimed were “likely” noncitizens and gave the state 48 hours to act. The DOJ demanded that California stop sending ballots to the people on the list and set aside, uncounted, any ballots they had already returned.

When California refused to be bullied, the DOJ sued. It claimed that the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause gave it the right to dictate how California runs its election.

But this argument makes no sense. Yes, the Supremacy Clause makes federal law supreme, but nothing in federal law gives the federal government the power to order a state to withhold ballots or refuse to count them.

On Oct. 16, DOJ threatened California election officials and workers with criminal investigations and prosecutions if they refused to back down. Trump then reposted the DOJ's letter on Truth Social, declaring that California officials “will all go to jail for a long period of time!!!”

Meanwhile, the threats are spreading. On Oct. 19, the first day of early voting in Texas, Aaron Reitz, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, posted a video vowing to “hunt down and prosecute” voters and local election officials.

All of this is part of Trump’s latest scheme to make it harder for you to vote and easier for him to cheat. He is trying to get people used to the idea that he can control how ballots are counted, a claim he first made on social media in August 2025 and has repeated ever since.

These threats are not just ugly; they are illegal. Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act forbids anyone, including federal officials, from intimidating or threatening people who help others vote, and that includes the election officials who mail and count ballots.

The big law firms may be afraid to take on Trump, but I am not. The legacy media may fear his disapproval and ire. I don’t care.

My job is to represent my clients and help protect democracy. In this case, that means getting relief from the court now, before the harms grow.

We are asking the court to bar the Trump administration from ordering or coercing states to remove voters, withhold ballots, or segregate or refuse to count ballots. We are also asking it to stop the continuing threats against state and local election officials.

This is not the first lawsuit my firm has filed against Trump and his administration to protect the midterms. This likely won’t be the last. No matter what he says, we will not stop fighting until every lawful ballot is cast and counted and the rightful winners are certified and seated.