WASHINGTON — Democratic officials in 19 states filed a lawsuit Thursday against President Donald Trump’s attempt to reshape elections across the U.S., calling it an unconstitutional invasion of states’ clear authority to run their own elections.

The lawsuit is the fourth against the executive order issued just a week ago. It seeks to block key aspects of it, including new requirements that people provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a demand that all mail ballots be received by Election Day.

“The President has no power to do any of this,” the state attorneys general wrote in court documents. “The Elections EO is unconstitutional, antidemocratic, and un-American.”

Trump’s order said the U.S. has failed “to enforce basic and necessary election protection.” Election officials have said recent elections have been among the most secure in U.S. history. There has been no indication of any widespread fraud, including when Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020.

The order is the culmination of Trump’s longstanding complaints about how U.S. elections are run. After his first win in 2016, Trump falsely claimed his popular vote total would have been much higher if not for “millions of people who voted illegally.” In 2020, Trump blamed a “rigged” election for his loss and falsely claimed widespread voter fraud and manipulation of voting machines.

Trump has argued his order secures the vote against illegal voting by noncitizens, though multiple studies and investigations in the states have shown that it’s rare.

It has received praise from the top election officials in some Republican states who say it could inhibit instances of voter fraud and will give them access to federal data to better maintain their voter rolls.

The order also requires states to exclude any mail-in or absentee ballots received after Election Day, and puts states’ federal funding at risk if election officials don’t comply. Some states count ballots as long as they are postmarked by Election Day or allow voters to correct minor errors on their ballots.

Forcing states to change, the suit says, would violate the broad authority the Constitution gives states to set their own election rules. It says they decide the “times, places and manner” of how elections are run.

Congress has the power to “make or alter” election regulations, at least for federal office, but the Constitution doesn’t mention any presidential authority over election administration.

“We are a democracy – not a monarchy – and this executive order is an authoritarian power grab,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said the Trump administration is requiring states to either comply with an unconstitutional order or lose congressionally approved funding, something he said the president has no authority to do.

“In one fell swoop, this president is attempting to undermine elections and sidestep the Congress, and we’re not going to stand for it,” he said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said Trump’s executive order was an attempt to impose “sweeping voting restrictions” across the country and disenfranchise voters.

The attorney general and secretary of state in Nevada, a presidential battleground, defended their state’s elections as fair, secure and transparent, and objected to the president’s attempt to interfere in how they are run. Attorney General Aaron Ford praised Nevada’s automatic systems for registering voters and distributing mail ballots.

“While this order is on its face unconstitutional and illegal, it is also unnecessary,” he said.

A request for comment sent to the White House was not immediately returned.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts by the Democratic attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Other lawsuits filed over the order argue it could disenfranchise voters because millions of eligible voting-age Americans do not have the proper documents readily available. People are already required to attest to being citizens, under penalty of perjury, in order to vote.

Under the order, documents acceptable to prove citizenship would be a U.S. passport, a REAL ID-compliant driver’s license that “indicates the applicant is a citizen,” and a valid photo ID as long as it is presented with proof of citizenship.

Democrats argue that millions of Americans do not have easy access to their birth certificates, about half don’t have a U.S. passport, and married women would need multiple documents if they had changed their name. That was a complication for some women during recent town elections in New Hampshire, the first ones held under a new state law requiring proof of citizenship to register.

Not all REAL ID-compliant driver’s licenses designate U.S. citizenship.

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Cassidy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Tran Nguyen in Sacramento, California, Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, and Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

CHICAGO — A federal judge has temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Labor from implementing parts of President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at curbing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts among federal contractors and grant recipients.

Judge Matthew Kennelly of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois halted the Labor Department from requiring federal contractors or grant recipients from certifying that they don’t operate any programs in violation of Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders.

That certification provision has stepped up pressure on companies and other organizations to revisit their DEI practices because if the government were to determine they violated the provision, they would be subject to crippling financial penalties under the False Claims Act.

Thursday’s ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed by Chicago Women in Trades, a nonprofit founded in 1981 that helps prepare women for work in skilled construction trades and has several contracts with the Department of Labor. There was no immediate reaction from Chicago Women in Trades to Kennelly’s order. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A hearing on Chicago Women in Trades’ bid for a longer-lasting halt on Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders is scheduled for April 10.

The organization’s lawsuit is one of several challenging Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI programs in both the private and public sectors.

Trump signed an order his first day in office directing federal agencies to terminate all “equity-related” grants or contracts. He signed a follow-up order that included a requirement that federal contractors and grantees certify that they don’t “operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.”

Kennelly’s decision comes nearly two weeks after an appeals court lifted a broader nationwide injunction against Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders in a separate lawsuit in Baltimore. But Thursday’s ruling is limited in scope because Kennelly declined to extend the temporary restraining order to other federal agencies.

Chicago Women in Trades, which filed its case against the Trump administration last month, argued that the president’s executive orders on DEI are so broad and vague that the organization had no way to ensure compliance, and thus they threaten its core mission.

Kennelly wrote that Chicago Women in Trades, which is being represented by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, was likely to succeed in its arguments that parts of the executive orders are a violation of free speech rights and are unconstitutionally vague.

Although the government argued that the certification provision “implicates only illegal DEI programs, it has studiously declined to shed any light on what this means. The answer is anything but obvious,” Kennelly wrote.

Kennelly wrote that he extended his order to all Labor Department contractors and grant recipients because the vagueness of Trump’s executive orders, coupled with the threat of financial penalties, would likely pressure organizations to curb DEI programs in potential violation of free speech rights.

Rather than face potentially crippling penalties, “it is likely that many of these grantees will take the safer route and choose to simply stop speaking on anything remotely related to what the government might consider to promote DEI or equity. A nationwide restraining order is appropriate to protect grantees who cannot afford the risks inherent in biting the hand that feeds them,” Kennelly wrote.

The judge also blocked the DOL from freezing or canceling any funding with Chicago Women in Trades, and the Trump administration from pursuing any False Claims Act enforcement against them.

During a hearing on Tuesday, the Trump administration argued that Chicago Women in Trades’ motion for relief was premature because its arguments rely on speculation as to how the executive orders will be implemented.

But Chicago Women in Trades noted in court filings that it has multiple communications from the Department of Labor directing them to ensure compliance with both DEI executive orders. The organization also said in court and has already lost a subcontract with a contractor trying to comply with the executive order.

Chicago Women in Trades has a long history of partnering with companies, state and federal agencies and other industry stakeholders to provide guidance and training on best practices for recruiting and retaining women in the trades — including training to combat bias and harassment that is prevalent in one of the country’s most male-dominated industries.

Its grant work with the federal government dates back years, including two grants awarded under the first Trump administration under the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations, which aims to expand pathways for women seeking to enter skilled trades.

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The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON — A young economist who had uprooted her life for civil service. A fierce housing advocate terminated just before buying her first home. A semifinalist whose dreams were dashed before they materialized.

For decades, the Presidential Management Fellows program was seen as a building block for the civil service with the expectation that the few who earned the position would one day become leaders in the federal workforce. Now the road ahead is uncertain. Hundreds of the fellows have been terminated or placed on administrative leave amid a nationwide slashing of the federal workforce.

One of President Donald Trump’s executive orders ended the program, which was created in 1978 to entice highly qualified workers with advanced degrees to join the federal government.

Trump’s Republican administration had ordered agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of workers in one fell swoop. That included recent classes of the fellows program, which has a two-year probationary period.

Fellows had persevered through an intense selection process that included multiple tests and evaluations as well as a blind interview. The agency website said about 10% of applicants are accepted, although that number has been recently as low as just 3%.

Charles Conyers, an Office of Personnel Management retiree who was a fellow in the class of 2003, said he was saddened and puzzled about the administration eliminating a program that brought to the government some of the “brightest minds in America.” He said losing their skills and ending a program that attracted and groomed exceptional future leaders was tragic.

While many fellows affected by the job cuts were reluctant to speak on the record, several did. As a group, they said they loved their jobs and see federal civil service as a way to serve their country. All would welcome, if given a chance, the opportunity to get back to work and use their expertise.

Jenn Kauffman, who has a background in public health and labor studies, was a semifinalist for the fellows program this year and had been waiting to hear if she would be accepted. As layoffs were announced, she began to worry if it would continue.

“I worked really hard and wanted that satisfaction to see it through,” she said.

On Feb. 19, during the week finalists would have been named, the Trump administration announced an executive order cutting the program.

Kauffman, 45, said she was crushed by the decision and worries that the mass layoffs and dissolution of the fellows program will forever change public service.

“It’s so easy to decimate something but so much harder to rebuild,” she said. “And I worry that the incredibly talented people who may have been my cohort or colleagues are going to go elsewhere, and there will be an incredible brain drain. It’s such a loss for the American people.”

Sydney Smith, 28, said many of the fellows were shocked at being let go because they came in to the government with ideas on how to make it more efficient.

Smith studied chemistry as an undergraduate student at Willamette University in Oregon before going on to study accounting at George Washington University. She heard about the presidential fellows program but was skeptical she would get in because of the low acceptance rate.

After she made it as a finalist in 2023, she started working for the U.S. Forest Service as an accountant. She’s a backpacker who loves the outdoors and is passionate about making public lands accessible. It was a perfect fit.

Now Smith’s goal is to finish the CPA exams, something she was doing to make herself even more qualified for federal service.

“I’m hopeful that in the future that there will be room for me in the government,” she said. “I don’t know what that would look like, but I am hopeful that it still exists.”

McKenzie Hartman, 26, was an economist for the IRS research division in Ogden, Utah, when she received an email Feb. 19 that she should return to the office with all her equipment.

The next day, a manager collected her equipment and walked her out. On the way home, Hartman took a wrong turn because her mind was elsewhere.

“It felt surreal,” she said. “I had planned on working for the federal government since high school.”

Hartman lost access to her office’s video conferencing software and couldn’t join her colleagues for her own goodbye gathering. She had to call in instead. Her termination letter came the following weekend.

“It’s crazy to get a letter terminating you for performance when everyone around you is saying incredible things about your performance,” Hartman said.

Since then, she has been applying for jobs and embarked on a road trip with her partner through several national parks, where she’s seen protests against the Trump administration’s cuts.

“For a lot of us, there is a question on whether we’ll return to federal service,” she said. “Many of us would like to, and this was what we wanted for our careers, but it’s demoralizing.”

Bianca Nelson, 31, had been working for the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the unit she calls the “front door of HUD.” She never planned to leave. On Feb. 14, she got an email that she was terminated, effective immediately.

Nelson and her partner were planning to buy their first home that month — their “dream apartment.” Now, they’ve had to lean on savings to keep them afloat. She called it “gut-wrenching.”

She had to forward the termination email to her boss, who had not been told she or others would be fired. Days later, she picked up her belongings, including a bell given to her at a New York City Housing Authority groundbreaking ceremony — a memento representing her love for her work.

Since then, she has spent her days organizing paperwork for unemployment and insurance, taking networking calls, volunteering with her union, organizing a resource fair for other fired federal workers in her area and volunteering with housing advocacy organizations.

Ending the program, she said, is “closing a pipeline to future leaders.”

Madeleine Parker’s fellowship began in September 2023, one month after she finished her doctorate degree in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley.

Parker, 32, chose to work in housing because of its importance in offering families stability. She said she had hoped to continue working for the federal government.

“It’s been hard to step back from that,” she said.

She is trying to strategize on what comes next while worrying about the people who need the help.

“There’s the personal impact of my own job, but I have this immense concern about the impacts on the people we serve, from the programs I worked on and that my colleagues worked on, from affordable housing development to disaster recovery,” she said.

Juliane Alfen, 25, left her workplace at the U.S. Agency for International Development in tears, exiting to cheers from supporters who protested the abrupt way one of the world’s preeminent aid organizations had been decimated.

A 2023 fellow, her goal was to build a life and career around federal service.

Alfen learned of the fellowship through her graduate school program in international affairs at the University of California, San Diego. The day she learned she’d made it to finalist, she said, “I literally screamed and called my mom on the phone.” There had been more than 10,000 initial applicants.

Now, when she looks at her LinkedIn account, everyone is job hunting. She said she would love the opportunity to return to USAID, though the prospects for that are uncertain given the Trump administration’s gutting of the agency through his adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and halting its humanitarian work.

“I feel,” Alfen said, “like we made a difference.”

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Fernando reported from Chicago.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order aiming to reduce the costs of in vitro fertilization, a medical procedure that helps people facing infertility build their families.

“Americans need reliable access to IVF and more affordable treatment options, as the cost per cycle can range from $12,000 to $25,000,” the order said. “Providing support, awareness, and access to affordable fertility treatments can help these families navigate their path to parenthood with hope and confidence.”

The order instructed the assistant to the president for domestic policy to give Trump a list of policy recommendations on protecting IVF access and “aggressively reducing out-of-pocket and health plan costs for IVF treatment” within 90 days.

IVF became a talking point during the 2024 presidential campaign when Alabama agreed to protect in vitro fertilization providers from legal liability a couple of weeks after the state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law.

Trump said at the time he strongly supported its availability. And a June poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults support protecting access to IVF, with 26% neutral and about 1 in 10 opposed.

In 2018, assisted reproductive technology, including IVF, contributed to 2% of all infants born in the United States, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s what to know about this increasingly common fertility treatment.

The procedure offers a possible solution when a woman has trouble getting pregnant, and it’s normally tried after other, less expensive fertility treatments have failed.

It involves retrieving the woman’s eggs and combining them in a lab dish with a man’s sperm to create a fertilized embryo, which is then transferred into her uterus in an attempt to create a pregnancy.

IVF is done in cycles and may take more than one. The procedure can use a couple’s eggs and sperm or those from a donor.

Insurance coverage of IVF and other fertility treatments can be patchy and depends on who provides insurance for the patient.

More large employers are offering the coverage to attract and keep workers. Many businesses also are extending coverage beyond those with an infertility diagnosis, making it accessible to LGBTQ+ couples and single women.

Government-funded programs such as Medicaid largely limit fertility treatment coverage. Coverage is less common among smaller employers.

Critics have said the lack of widespread coverage creates a divide, limiting treatments mainly to people who can pay thousands of dollars out of pocket.

The first baby conceived through IVF was born in 1978 in England. But the first in the U.S. was in 1981 in Norfolk, Virginia, with the birth of Elizabeth Carr.

Her mother, Judith Carr, had had three abnormal pregnancies, forcing the removal of her fallopian tubes. She and her husband sought treatment from Howard and Georgeanna Jones, doctors who opened a fertility clinic at Eastern Virginia Medical School.

The Norfolk clinic faced resistance before it even opened. When it sought a required state certificate in 1979, more than 600 people jammed into a public hearing. Several women voiced support for IVF and testified about wanting to start a family, while anti-abortion groups raised concerns about doctors interfering with human conception and embryos being discarded.

Despite proposed state legislation to stop the clinic, it opened in 1980, with others following soon afterward in California, Tennessee and Texas. By 1988, at least 169 in vitro centers were operating in 41 states.

The use of IVF continued to grow, but sentiments against it never really went away in the American anti-abortion movement, said Margaret Marsh, a history professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Many abortion opponents had made an uneasy peace with the technology as a treatment for infertility, Marsh said. But opposition to IVF has gained momentum since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022.

“Not everyone in the anti-abortion movement opposes these reproductive technologies, but many do,” she said.

The treatment often uses hormones to trigger ovulation so multiple eggs are produced and a needle is used to remove them from the ovaries.

Eggs can be fertilized by adding the sperm to the eggs in a lab, or a single sperm can be injected into each egg.

The fertilized egg is cultured over about five to six days to create the blastocyst — the early stage of an embryo — and is either transferred or stored for future use, said Dr. Jason Griffith, a reproductive endocrinologist in Houston.

Griffith said that on day three after fertilization, an embryo is anywhere from six to 10 cells. By day six, it’s between 100 and 300 cells. In comparison, he said, a person contains more than 1 trillion cells.

Frozen embryos can be used for future pregnancies, and the vast majority survive the thawing process.

The freezing process involves replacing the water in embryo cells with a protectant fluid and flash-freezing with liquid nitrogen, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Frozen embryos are stored in tanks containing liquid nitrogen at hospital labs or reproductive medicine centers. Griffith said they can also be kept in storage facilities contracted by health care facilities, especially when they are stored for many years. Frozen embryos can be safely preserved for a decade or more.

Griffith said conditions are monitored in these facilities and there are physical security mechanisms to safeguard the tanks and backup generators in case of power outages.

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Ungar reported from Louisville, Kentucky. Associated Press writers Tom Murphy in Indianapolis and Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia contributed reporting.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

SEATTLE — A federal judge who already questioned the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order is set to hear arguments Thursday over a longer-term pause of the directive, which aims to end citizenship for children born to parents not legally in the country.

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle has scheduled a hearing involving lawyers from the Trump administration, four states suing to stop the order, and an immigrant rights organization, which is challenging it on behalf of a proposed class of expectant parents.

The latest proceeding comes just a day after a Maryland federal judge issued a nationwide pause in a separate but similar case involving immigrants’ rights groups and pregnant women whose soon-to-born children could be affected.

Here’s a closer look at where things stand on the president’s birthright citizenship order.

The president’s executive order seeks to end the automatic grant of citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to parents who are in the country illegally or who are here on a temporary, but lawful, basis such as those on student or tourist visas.

For now, though, it’s on hold. Two weeks ago, Coughenour called the order “blatantly unconstitutional” and issued a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking its implementation. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman followed that up with an injunction keeping it on hold long-term, until the merits of the case are resolved, barring a successful appeal by the Trump administration.

Asked by Boardman if the administration would appeal, an attorney for the administration said he didn’t immediately have the authority to make that decision.

On Thursday, the birthright citizenship issue is back before Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee. During a hearing last month, he said the case stood out in his more than four decades as a federal judge. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is,” he told a Justice Department attorney.

His temporary order blocking the executive action was set to expire Thursday when he’ll hear arguments over whether he should issue an injunction similar to the one issued by the judge in Maryland.

In total, 22 states, as well as other organizations, have sued to try to stop the executive action.

The matter before the Seattle judge Thursday involves four states: Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington. It also has been consolidated with a lawsuit brought by the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. Eighteen states, led by Iowa, have filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief supporting the Trump administration’s position in the case.

Yet another hearing is set for Friday in a Massachusetts court. That case involves a different group of 18 states challenging the order, including New Jersey, which is the lead plaintiff.

At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, which held Scott, an enslaved man, wasn’t a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was outlawed.

The plaintiffs argue the amendment, which holds that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” are indisputably citizens.

The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.

“The Constitution does not harbor a windfall clause granting American citizenship to … the children of those who have circumvented (or outright defied) federal immigration laws,” the government argued in reply to the Maryland plaintiffs’ suit.

Attorneys for the states have argued that it certainly does — and that has been recognized since the amendment’s adoption, notably in an 1898 U.S. Supreme Court decision. That decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, held that the only children who did not automatically receive U.S. citizenship upon being born on U.S. soil were children of diplomats, who have allegiance to another government; enemies present in the U.S. during hostile occupation; those born on foreign ships; and those born to members of sovereign Native American tribes.

The U.S. is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them.

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Catalini is based in Trenton, New Jersey. Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman contributed from Greenbelt, Maryland.

JUNEAU, Alaska — The Alaska House on Monday voted to urge President Donald Trump to reverse course and retain the name of North America’s tallest peak as Denali.

The vote came a week after Trump, on his first day in office, signed an executive order calling for the name to revert to Mount McKinley. Through his action, the president revived an idea he had floated years earlier — one the state’s Republican U.S. senators and many Alaskans have opposed.

Monday’s vote was 28-10, though notice of reconsideration was given, meaning the resolution could be voted on again before being sent to the Senate.

The Alaska House is led by a majority coalition that is composed largely of Democrats but also includes independents and two Republicans. The resolution came from Rep. Maxine Dibert, a Democrat who is Koyukon Athabascan. She noted that Denali is a Koyukon Athabascan word meaning “the high one,” but said Denali is not just a name.

“It’s a symbol of history. It’s a symbol of culture and a symbol of respect,” Dibert said.

Minority Republicans sought unsuccessfully to amend the resolution to add language expressing “gratitude” to Trump for a separate order aimed at boosting oil and gas drilling, mining and logging in the state. Some of them said that approach seemed appropriate, given this will likely be the first formal message the Legislature sends to the Trump administration.

Rep. Kevin McCabe, a Republican, said he thought adding supportive language around the executive order on resources would strengthen the overall aim. “Perhaps that’s the best way to unite us and unite this resolution, and say, ‘Hey, President Trump, thanks for doing all this. Could you possibly stop the renaming of Denali?’”

According to the National Park Service, a prospector in 1896 dubbed the peak Mount McKinley for William McKinley of Ohio, who was elected president that year. McKinley had never been to Alaska.

The name would go on to be formally recognized by the U.S. government until it was changed in 2015 by the Obama administration to Denali. The name change reflected the traditions of Alaska Natives and the preference of many Alaskans, underscored by a push by state leaders decades earlier. The 20,310-foot (6,190-meter) mountain in Denali National Park and Preserve on clear days can be see from hundreds of miles away.

The Interior Department last week announced efforts were underway to implement Trump’s renaming order, even though state leaders don’t see the matter as settled yet.

Alaska Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan last week said his preference is for “the name the patriotic, strong Athabascan people gave that great mountain thousands of years ago: Denali. We’ll continue the discussions with the Trump administration on that.” Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy has said that he hopes to have a discussion with the president about the mountain next month in Washington.

Republican efforts to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from numbers used to divvy up congressional seats among states have begun anew, with four Republican state attorneys general suing to alter the once-a-decade head count even before President Donald Trump’s second term in office began Monday.

Trump joined in the battle immediately upon returning to office, signing an executive order on Monday that rescinded a Biden administration order and signaled the possibility of a push by his new administration to change the 2030 census. Those efforts may get a boost from the GOP-controlled Congress, where Republican U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards from North Carolina earlier this month re-introduced legislation that would put a citizenship question on the census form.

During his first term, Trump signed an order that would have excluded people in the U.S. illegally from being included in the 2020 census numbers used to allot congressional seats and Electoral College votes to each state. The GOP president also mandated in a second order the collection of citizenship data through administrative records. A Republican redistricting expert had written that using citizen voting-age population instead of the total population for the purpose of redrawing congressional and legislative districts could be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.

Trump issued the memos after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked his earlier attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census questionnaire. The high court said the administration’s justification for the question “seems to have been contrived.”

Both Trump orders were rescinded when President Joe Biden arrived at the White House in January 2021, before the 2020 census figures were released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the nation’s largest statistical agency.

“I think it’s an open question about how much energy the administration and Congress will try to bend the statistical system to its will,” historian Margo Anderson said about Trump’s second term. “Not because they wouldn’t like to, but because there are other parts of the national government that they are more interested in.”

The Fourteenth Amendment says that “the whole number of persons in each state” should be counted for the numbers used for apportionment, the process of allocating congressional seats and Electoral College votes among the states based on population. The numbers also guide the distribution of $2.8 trillion in federal dollars to the states for roads, health care and other programs.

The lawsuit filed Friday by the GOP attorneys general of Kansas, Louisiana, Ohio and West Virginia seeks to exclude people in the country illegally or temporarily from the numbers used to apportion congressional seats. It claims that Ohio and West Virginia each unfairly lost a congressional seat and an electoral vote after the 2020 census because people in the U.S. illegally were included, and that each of the four states stands to lose a congressional seat and electoral vote after the 2030 census if that doesn’t change.

Projections released last month by Election Data Services don’t show those four states losing seats after the 2030 census. The projections instead say California, New York and Illinois — states with Democratic majorities — are likely to lose the most seats and electoral votes.

The Census Bureau on Tuesday didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Opponents of the citizenship question on the 2020 census said it discouraged participation by immigrants and residents who were in the country illegally, resulting in inaccurate figures. A Census Bureau simulation released in 2023 indicated that a significant number of noncitizens were missed in the count, which took place during the last year of the first Trump administration and at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Demographers and researchers expect the second Trump administration to change or reverse recent actions by the Biden administration related to U.S. statistical agencies. They include combining into a single question race and ethnicity questions that previously were asked separately on forms and adding a Middle Eastern and North African category.

Many experts also expect planned questions about sexual orientation and gender identity on the most comprehensive survey of American life to be on the chopping block. Some have concerns that Trump will politicize the Census Bureau with large numbers of political appointees, with little experience, as happened during his first term. The Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025” policy guidebook for a Republican presidential administration advocated putting “committed political appointees and like-minded career employees” in bureau positions so they could “execute a conservative agenda.”

“They could easily put in the same type of idiots they put in last time for political purposes,” said Andrew Beveridge, a sociology professor at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate School and University Center, who is an expert on the census. “I would assume that he will do what he tried to do before.”

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Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform X: @MikeSchneiderAP.

Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, said in an interview on Wednesday that the president-elect is exploring options to “preserve” TikTok.

Waltz made the comment when Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked him about a report from The Washington Post that said Trump was considering an executive order to suspend enforcement of a federal law that could ban the popular platform nationwide by Sunday.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a legal challenge to the statute brought by TikTok, its China-based parent company ByteDance, and users of the app. The Justices seemed likely to uphold the law, which requires ByteDance to divest TikTok on national security grounds or face a ban in one of its biggest markets.

“If the Supreme Court comes out with a ruling in favor of the law, President Trump has been very clear: Number one, TikTok is a great platform that many Americans use and has been great for his campaign and getting his message out. But number two, he’s going to protect their data,” Waltz said.

“He’s a deal maker. I don’t want to get ahead of our executive orders, but we’re going to create this space to put that deal in place,” he added.

Separately on Wednesday, Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for attorney general, dodged a question during a Senate hearing on whether she’d uphold a TikTok ban.

Trump has reversed his position on the popular app, having tried to ban it during his first term in office over national security concerns. He joined TikTok during his 2024 presidential campaign and his team used it to connect with younger voters, especially male voters, by pushing content that was often macho and aimed at going viral. He pledged to “save TikTok” during the campaign and has credited the platform with helping him win more youth votes.