In July, 2026, the Western Washington District Court violated Article 2, Section 2 of the US Constitution by attempting to appoint Roger Rogoff as the US Attorney for Western Washington. Roger Rogoff, who was formely an attorney for Microsoft, was appointed to King County Superior Court by Democrat Governor Jay Inslee in 2013. He was then nominated by Democrat President Barack Obama to be a federal judge in 2014 and his nomination was supported by Democrat Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell in the Senate Confirmation vote. More recently, in 2025, Patty Murray used an unconstitutional Blue Slip policy to block Trump from nominating a conservative Attorney General for Western Washington. Trump got even with Murray by immediately fired Rogoff. On July 21, 2026, Rogoff sued Trump in the Western Washington District Court. In this article, we will explain why this case affects the rights of every parent and family in our state - and what is likely to happen in the coming months.
Why this case affects the rights of parents and families
In the past year, the Washington Parents Network has filed several complaints with the US Department of Justice in an attempt to restore and protect the rights of parents and families here in Washington state against unconstitutional attacks against parents rights by our state superintendent and legislature. Under the US Constitution, the person who is supposed to investigate and protect our rights is the US Attorney General.
What is a US Attorney and why are they important?
The US is divided into 93 federal districts. Each federal district is required by law and by the US Constitution to have a US Attorney – whose job is to protect the constitutional rights of the People, enforce the federal laws of Congress and insure “liberty and justice for all”. An increasingly politicized, weaponized, and corrupted justice system threatens our fundamental values: impartial criminal justice, freedom of speech, due process, equal protection of the laws, the right to petition the government, and democracy itself.
In 1940, then-Attorney General Robert Jackson observed that prosecutors have “more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. Because of this immense power to strike at citizens, not with mere individual strength, but with all the force of government itself, the post of Federal District Attorney from the very beginning has been safeguarded by presidential appointment, requiring confirmation of the Senate. You are thus required to win an expression of confidence in your character by both the legislative and the executive branches of the government before assuming the responsibilities of a federal prosecutor… Only by extreme care can we protect the spirit as well as the letter of our civil liberties, and to do so is a responsibility of the federal prosecutor.”
Robert H. Jackson, U.S. Attorney General, Address Delivered at the Second Annual Conference of United States Attorneys.
What is Article 2, Section 2 and why is it important?
Article 2, sections 2 of the US Constitution states that the President SHALL nominate and the Senate SHALL provide advice and consent with an actual up or down vote of the Presidents nominees for US Attorney. The word “SHALL” is used twice to make it clear that the President must nominate someone and the Senate must have a vote on whoever the President nominates.
For nearly 250 years, this simple system worked with only minor disputes. For example, on September 24, 1789, President George Washington sent a letter to the Senate with a nomination list of 6 Supreme Court Justices, 11 federal district judges, 11 US Marshals and 11 US Attorneys. The Senate approved of all 38 nominees in less than 24 hours.
Why the Senate Blue Slip Policy violates Article 2 Section 2
In 2025, a group of Democrats in the Senate openly announced that they would use an unwritten Senate Policy called a Blue Slip to block the Presidents US Attorney nominees in the 44 federal districts that had Democrat Senators.
This Blue Slip policy meaning that these nominees would not even get an up or down vote as required by Article 2, Section 2 of the US Constitution. As of July 2026, only 7 US Attorneys in Democrat controlled districts have valid “Senate Confirmed” US Attorneys.
Why Two Wrongs do not make a Right
In a futile attempt to work around this unconstitutional Blue Slip road block, Trump and the US Department of Justice began appointing “acting” and/or “special” US Attorneys – and simply ignoring the US Senate – an action that also violates Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution.
Senate Democrats responded by correctly noting that the Constitution does not provide for either “special” or “acting” US Attorneys. Ignoring the fact that the Constitution also does not provide for “Blue Slips,” these Senators encouraged federal courts (that had previously been “stacked” with Democrat judges) to use a couple of unconstitutional federal laws to kick out the fake Trump “acting” US Attorneys and replace them with their own fake “acting” US Attorneys.
Trump responded by immediately firing the court appointed “acting” US Attorneys and re-installing his own fake acting US Attorneys.
The Federal Courts also violate Article 2 Section 2
In the past year, about 7 federal courts have issued rulings on Trump’s actions and all 7 have agreed that Trump’s actions are in violation of the two federal laws the courts have been using to appoint their own US Attorneys. None of these 7 federal courts have ever address the actual language of Article 2, Sections 2 and/or whether the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA) complied with these important Constitutional provisions.
In fact, all three sides in this dispute – the Senate, the President and the federal Courts- are blatantly violating the US Constitution – and in the process leaving more than 160 million Americans without a valid US Attorney to protect our Constitutional rights.
The Appointments Clause (Article 2, Section 2) states that “the President shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint... Officers of the United States... but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”
The key word at the end of Section 2 is the word “OR.” It means that if Congress wants to provide an option other than Nomination followed by the Advice and Consent vote, then Congress must choose between one of the three clear, specific and simple options: Either the President can choose, or the Courts can choose or the Heads of Department can choose.
The problem with the two federal laws passed by Congress and used by the Courts is that both use a different process that is not one of the three simple options provided in the Constitution. The main law, passed by Congress in 1998 and called the FVRA, establishes three complex pathways for appointing “acting” officials. But instead of choosing one of the three simple and clear options in Article 2, Section 2, the FVRA sets up a series of time limits and several other conditions attached to these “acting” officials.
The end result of these conditions is to create an end run around the Constitution which allows the Senate in combination with the Blue Slip to have more power over the appointment of “acting” officials than the President. It essentially allows even a single Senator to ignore Presidential nominees and skip the advice and consent vote and choose their own federal officers thereby voiding the Presidential Election and ignoring the will of the People.
To add insult to injury, the NVRA gives priority to the political party that lost the Presidential election to keep their policies in place and actively oppose the policies of the political party that won the Presidential election.
The second federal law authorizing the selection of temporary US Attorneys is 28 USC § 546 (aka Section 546). It provides that when an “office of United States attorney is vacant,” the Attorney General may appoint an Interim U.S. Attorney for no more than 120 days. If those 120 days elapse and the office remains vacant, in other words, if the Senate refuses to provide Advice and Consent with a vote, Congress provided that the district court for the relevant district “may appoint a United States attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled.”
This law is even worse than the NVRA because it literally allows the District Court to choose the AG that will present cases to them. It makes the District Court the sheriff, judge and jury. And thanks to the Blue Slip, over time, each District Court becomes highly polarized to represent only the views if the Senators who control their appointments – which in Western Washington is Patty Murray. Over time, our federal district courts have become rubber stamping Kangaroo Courts that lead to one set of rules being enforced in “Democrat” districts and a completely different set of rules being enforced in “Republican” districts.
The Washington Parents Network explains why the DOJ should ask the Supreme Court to solve the problem by declaring the Blue Slip to be Unconstitutional
On October 6, 2025, US Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Neil Floyd to be the temporary US Attorney for Western Washington. By federal law, his temporary appointment would be up in February 2026.
Patty Murray and her accomplices immediately began planning how they would get rid of Neil Floyd.
To expose and address this nightmare, on January 20, 2026, we at the Washington Parents Network filed a 99 page complaint with the US Department of Justice. Our complaint explained why all three sides were violating Article 2, Sections 2 and why the two federal laws also violate the Constitution. We asserted, and continue to assert, that the only long term solution to this standoff between the President and the Senate and the Courts is for all three sides to start complying with the simple and plain meaning of Article 2, Sections 2.
Unfortunately, in February 2026, the Department of Justice notified us that they intended to continue down their fatal path of arguing that they have the right to ignore the Senate and appoint their own “special” US Attorneys – despite the fact that by this point, they had lost in seven federal courts.
As we predicted in our complaint, here in the Western Washington federal district, a group of Democrat appointed judges selected a Democrat backed person, Roger Rogoff, to be the US Attorney rather than allowing a vote on the Trump appointed US Attorney (Neal Flyod).
Trump immediately fired the Democrat fake US Attorney and put his own fake US Attorney back in place. But neither of these fake US Attorneys has any valid authority because neither received a majority vote of the US Senate.
Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, who caused the problem in the first place by placing a “Blue Slip” on all Trump nominees, and forcing Trump to appoint a fake US Attorney, criticized Trump for the firing the Democrats fake US Attorney.
Murray hypocritically accused Trump of bypassing the Senate advice-and-consent process – when in fact it was Murray herself who bypassed the Senate advice and consent process.
Because of this dispute between Trump and Blue Slip Senators, our complaints can not be investigated and thus the rights of one million parents and their children continue to be violated here in our state.
Rogoff v Trump
A few days after being fired by Trump, on July 21, 2026. Rogoff filed a 29 page complaint against Trump in the Western Washington District Court.
The complaint was eventually assigned to Judge Stanley A. Bastian. Bastian was nominated to be a Judge for the Eastern District of Washington by Obama in 2013 – with Patty Murray’s recommendation. The vote to invoke closure in the US Senate was 55 to 41. In 2020, he became the chief judge of the Eastern Washington federal district.
Here is a link to the entire Case Files:
Rogoff is asking the federal district court in Seattle to void his firing by President Trump and issue an order declaring that he remains the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington until the president nominates and the Senate confirms a replacement.
Here is a quote from Rogoff’s 29 page complaint:
“ The Appointments Clause provides that “Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”
Despite the fact that the above sentence only provides three Constitutional options, Rogoff ignores the fact that Patty Murray publicly stated that she would block any Trump nominee for US Attorney no matter how well qualified they might be.
Rogoff then goes on to claim that Congress has a right to come up with a fourth option (called Section 546) with all kinds of provisions – none of which are allowed by Article 2, Section 2 and which when combined with the Senate Blue Slip policy, take the power to appoint US Attorneys away from the President and put in the hands of power- hungry Senators like Patty Murray – essentially voiding Presidential elections.
In addition, by allowing the federal Court to appoint a US Attorney after the same political party used a Blue Slip to blocked the nomination of a US AttorneySection from even getting a vote of the Senate, Section 546 creates a situation where that political party becomes a monopoly in that state and have the power from having the rights of parents to ever be investigated by a Presidentially appointed and Senate Confirmed US Attorney.
Ironically, Rogoff’s complaint includes this sentence: “That state of affairs violates the Constitution and gravely undermines the separation-of-powers principles that the Appointments Clause is intended to protect.”
It is ironic because it is Patty Murray and Rogoff himself who are undermining the separation of powers principle that the Appointments Clause is intended to protect.
Rogoff then cites a series of Democrat controlled states where federal courts have held that Trump appointed US Attorneys had been ruled to be “invalid” because they were not confirmed by the US Senate.
What he failed to mention was that in every case, the reason no vote occurred was because Democrat Senators had used the unwritten and unconstitutional Blue Slip policy blocked their nominations from being considered.
Here is a final quote from Rogoff’s complaint:
“The people of the Western District of Washington have no validly appointed U.S. Attorney to prosecute federal crimes, investigate violations of federal law, and ensure lawful order. Absent a validly appointed US Attorney, the ability of the U.S. Attorney’s Office to seek indictments and prosecute cases is open to question. Prosecutors may be subject to disqualification, and the validity of all prosecutorial and enforcement actions by the U.S. Attorney’s Office is in jeopardy. Recent experience shows that these harms to the public are not hypothetical. The lack of lawfully appointed U.S. Attorneys in other districts has led to the disqualification of the improperly serving officials, the dismissal of indictments and quashing of subpoenas, and the threatened disqualification of Assistant U.S. Attorneys being supervised by the unlawfully appointed office heads.”
The Department of Justice filed a motion to replace the judge hearing this case. But the judge refused to recuse himself. Thus far, the DOJ has not submitted a Reply Brief.
The judge hearing this case, a person who was also appointed by Democrats, has not issued an opinion yet. But he is almost certain to rule in favor of Rogoff. The Case will then go to the Ninth Circuit – who is also likely to rule in favor of Rogoff. Then the case will make its way to the US Supreme Court where its fate is unknown.
What is predictable is that by then, Trump will be out of office and parents here in Washington state will be left out in the cold.
There are some other options we at the Washington Parents Network intend to pursue in the coming months. We will review these options at our next video conference meeting, which will be Sunday, August 2, 2026 from 4 to 5 pm. If you have any questions, or you would like the link to attend this meeting (and you are not already on our meeting list), send me an email and I will get back to you with the link.
Regards,
David Spring M. Ed.
David (at) Washington Parents Network.com