{"id":537,"date":"2026-08-18T17:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=537"},"modified":"2026-08-18T17:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T17:42:14","slug":"supreme-court-urged-to-leave-in-place-order-blocking-construction-of-white-house-ballroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=537","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court urged to leave in place order blocking construction of White House ballroom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Lawyers for the National Trust for Historic Preservation to leave in place a ruling by a federal court in Washington, D.C., that would temporarily block construction of a new White House ballroom. Gregory Craig, who served as the White House counsel during the Obama administration, accused the Trump administration of \u201ctrying to outrun judicial review\u201d by expediting construction on the ballroom so that \u201cit will soon be \u2018virtually impossible to deconstruct.\u2019\u201d In the government\u2019s view, Craig wrote, \u201cif the Court grants their stay application,\u201d which would allow construction on the project to continue, \u201cthis case is over\u2014despite every court to have reviewed their project having found it to be patently unlawful, and no matter the fact that this Court has not reviewed those decisions on the merits.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The chief justice should share much of his power<\/a><\/p>\n

The order by Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, has never actually gone into effect. Construction on the project has continued to move forward, and the Trump administration the court on Friday that the project was \u201c65% complete in its entirety, and moving quickly toward total completion.\u201d<\/p>\n

In announcing the plan to tear down the East Wing of the White House to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, the White House indicated in a press release on July 31, 2025, that, \u201c[f]or 150 years, Presidents, Administrations, and White House Staff have longed for a large event space on the White House complex that can hold substantially more guests than currently allowed. President Donald J. Trump has expressed his commitment to solving this problem on behalf of future Administrations and the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private nonprofit that describes itself as having \u201cled the movement to save America\u2019s historic places\u201d \u201c[f]or more than 75 years,\u201d went to federal court in December. The trust asked Leon to put construction on hold until the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts could review, and the NCPC could approve, the plans for the construction, \u201cand Congress has authorized the Ballroom\u2019s construction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leon\u2019s order put on hold the construction of the ballroom above ground but allowed construction \u2013 of, for example, bomb shelters and bunkers \u2013 to continue underground, along with any above-ground construction necessary for safety and security. Leon\u2019s ruling never went into effect, however, because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit temporarily paused it to give that court time to consider the Trump administration\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 7, a divided three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit\u00a0upheld\u00a0Leon\u2019s ruling but gave the federal government 14 days to go to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Only Congress has the power \u201cto regulate the construction and demolition of White House structures,\u201d Judges Patricia Millett and Bradley Garcia wrote for the majority, and it has not approved any money for the ballroom construction. If the construction is not paused, they said, and the ballroom is built, it will inflict permanent harm (another criterion that courts consider in determining whether to grant temporary relief) on the trust\u2019s members because of the \u201cirreversible historical-preservation, architectural, and visual damage\u201d that the new structure will cause.<\/p>\n

The dissenting judge, Neomi Rao, contended (among other things) that the National Trust for Historic Preservation did not have a legal right to sue, known as standing, to stop the ballroom construction. Moreover, she added, the president has the power to make improvements to his residence, which likely includes the ballroom.<\/p>\n

Read more What if one vote had changed in the birthright citizenship case?<\/a><\/p>\n

On Aug. 14, the Trump administration came to the Supreme Court, where it \u00a0to put Leon\u2019s order on hold, calling it \u201cextraordinary and unlawful.\u201d U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer contended that the ballroom project \u201cwill halt the ongoing construction of the integrated military complex, including a totally secure ballroom space, at the East Wing of the White House, which is vitally required by national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration argued the trust lacks a legal right to sue, known as standing, because its claims rest on a member\u2019s \u201cdislike\u201d for the new construction \u2013 which is not the kind of injury that would allow the lawsuit to go forward. Moreover, Sauer added, \u201cCongress has authorized the Project twice over\u201d \u2013 by authorizing Trump and other presidents \u201cto make \u2018alteration[s]\u2019 and \u2018improvement[s]\u2019 to the White House\u201d and because it \u201cbroadly authorized the Executive to construct buildings in national parks.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its 40-page filing, the National Trust framed the question at the center of the dispute as \u201csimply who decides whether a ballroom can be built on federal property. Our constitutional system and federal law commits that choice to Congress.\u201d If the Trump administration \u201cbelieve[s] there is a pressing need for a ballroom,\u201d the trust argued, \u201cnothing prevents [it] from asking Congress for one\u2014today, tomorrow, or any time in the future. But\u201d the government\u2019s \u201cefforts to foil judicial review and arrogate Congress\u2019s exclusive powers should not be rewarded with a stay that allows [it] to complete a ballroom [it] lack[s] any authority to commence in the first place.\u201d <\/p>\n

The trust stressed that the Trump administration would not be harmed if the Supreme Court turns down its request to pause Leon\u2019s order. There is, it said, \u201cnothing in the district court\u2019s carefully tailored injunction [that] prevents them from continuing work on the bunker, securing the East Wing site, or ensuring the safety of the President, his family, and staff. All the injunction stops is construction of a ballroom without prior congressional approval.\u201d<\/p>\n

By contrast, the trust continued, it will suffer permanent harm if the order is put on hold. The Trump administration, it said, has \u201craced to build as much of the ballroom as [it] can before the injunction goes into effect, proclaiming that \u2018the structure should be substantially finished by November 2026\u2019\u201d and emphasizing that the project is now \u201cbeyond the point of return,\u201d so that there would be no way to either take it down or change it.<\/p>\n

To the extent that the Trump administration is concerned about delay, the trust said, it \u201cwould not oppose an expedited procedure\u201d that would fast-track a petition from the government for review of the merits of the dispute, followed (if the court were to grant review) by oral arguments in October or November of this year.<\/p>\n

Read more What if one vote had changed in the birthright citizenship case?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawyers for the National Trust for Historic Preservation to leave in place a ruling by a federal court in Washington, D.C., that would temporarily block construction of a new White House ballroom. Gregory Craig, who served as the White House counsel during the Obama administration, accused the Trump administration of \u201ctrying to outrun judicial review\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-court-news"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court urged to leave in place order blocking construction of White House ballroom - American Service Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=537\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court urged to leave in place order blocking construction of White House ballroom - American Service Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lawyers for the National Trust for Historic Preservation to leave in place a ruling by a federal court in Washington, D.C., that would temporarily block construction of a new White House ballroom. 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