{"id":588,"date":"2026-08-31T21:39:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T21:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=588"},"modified":"2026-08-31T21:39:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T21:39:30","slug":"supreme-court-allows-construction-on-white-house-ballroom-to-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=588","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court allows construction on White House ballroom to continue"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Supreme Court on Monday granted the Trump administration\u2019s request to allow construction on a new White House ballroom to continue. By a vote of 5-4, the court paused a ruling by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that would have halted above-ground construction of the ballroom project.<\/p>\n

Read more Justice Alito\u2019s financial disclosure for 2025 is released<\/a><\/p>\n

In an , the majority emphasized that it was not deciding whether the project was legal. Instead, it stressed, the plaintiff likely lacks a legal right, known as standing, to challenge the project at all.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s decision came 10 days after Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order, known as an administrative stay, that put the lower court\u2019s ruling on hold to give the justices more time to consider the government\u2019s plea. On Monday, Roberts joined the court\u2019s three Democratic appointees in dissenting. In their view, the construction \u201cis likely unlawful,\u201d and the majority\u2019s decision was \u201cno victory for the separation of powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The order by Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon had never actually gone into effect. Monday\u2019s announcement by the Supreme Court raises the prospect that the project, which the Trump administration on Aug. 13 as \u201c65% complete in its entirety, and moving quickly toward total completion,\u201d could be finished, or nearly so, by the time the dispute is finally resolved.<\/p>\n

The plaintiff in the case, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is 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 It\u00a0went to federal court\u00a0in Washington, D.C., in December, where it asked Leon to pause construction until the\u00a0National Capital Planning Commission\u00a0and the\u00a0Commission of Fine Arts\u00a0could review the plans for the construction; the NCPC could approve those plans; and Congress could authorize the construction.<\/p>\n

On March 31, Leon issued an that temporarily blocked the construction of the ballroom above ground but allowed underground construction \u2013 of, for example, bomb shelters and bunkers \u2013 to move forward, along with any above-ground construction necessary for safety and security. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit paused Leon\u2019s ruling before it could go into effect to give that court time to consider the government\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 7, by a vote of 2-1, the D.C. Circuit\u00a0affirmed Leon\u2019s ruling but gave the federal government 14 days to seek relief from the Supreme Court. Unless the justices intervened, it said, Leon\u2019s ruling would go into effect on Aug. 21.<\/p>\n

Writing for the majority, Judges Patricia Millett and Bradley Garcia emphasized that Congress, and only Congress, has the power \u201cto regulate the construction and demolition of White House structures,\u201d but it has not approved any money for the ballroom construction. If the construction is not put on hold, they said, and the ballroom is built, it will permanently harm (an important factor that courts consider in deciding whether to grant temporary relief) the members of the National Trust because the new structure will cause \u201cirreversible historical-preservation, architectural, and visual damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Neomi Rao dissented. She argued (among other things) that the trust did not have standing to try to stop the ballroom construction. Moreover, she added, the president has the power to improve his residence, which likely includes the ballroom.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration on Aug. 13 the Supreme Court to step in and temporarily block Leon\u2019s ruling, calling it \u201cextraordinary and unlawful.\u201d U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that Leon\u2019s ruling would \u201chalt 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

Read more The \u201cborn free and equal\u201d clauses and Lawrence v. Texas<\/a><\/p>\n

Like Rao, the Trump administration contended that the trust lacks standing to sue, because its claims rest on a member\u2019s \u201cdislike\u201d for the new construction \u2013 which, it said, is not the kind of injury that would allow the lawsuit to go forward. Moreover, the government wrote, Congress has<\/em> authorized the project, both by giving Trump and other presidents the power \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 , the National Trust \u2013 represented by Tad Heuer of Foley Hoag \u2013 countered that Congress, rather than the president, \u201cdecides whether a ballroom can be built on federal property.\u201d If the Trump administration \u201cbelieve[s] there is a pressing need for a ballroom,\u201d it contended, it can seek permission and funds from Congress to build one. But 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] lacked any authority to commence in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the Supreme Court denies the Trump administration\u2019s request to pause Leon\u2019s order, the trust argued, the Trump administration will not suffer any permanent harm. There is, it wrote, \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

But if the court grants the government\u2019s request and pauses Leon\u2019s order, Heuer wrote, the trust will be permanently harmed. The government, he emphasized, 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 Indeed, he noted, the government has said 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

On Aug. 21, the day that Leon\u2019s order was scheduled to go into effect, Roberts issued a brief administrative stay that allowed construction to continue until the justices took further action.<\/p>\n

On Monday, a divided court granted the government\u2019s request for a stay, permitting construction to move forward while the litigation continues in the lower court. The majority\u2019s opinion focused primarily on its conclusion that the National Trust likely does not have standing to challenge the project. The trust had submitted a declaration from Alison Hoagland, a member who lives in Washington, D.C., and said that she visits the area where the White House is located approximately once per month. Hoagland, who has \u201cexpertise in historic architecture,\u201d claimed that the project caused \u201c\u2018injuries\u2019 to her \u2018aesthetic, cultural, and historical interests\u2019 because she finds the \u2018scale,\u2019 \u2018height,\u2019 and \u2018massing\u2019 of the government\u2019s design distasteful.\u201d But those are not the kind of \u201cconcrete\u201d and specific injuries required to bring a lawsuit, the majority explained.<\/p>\n

The majority also concluded that the government would be permanently harmed if Leon\u2019s order were allowed to go into effect \u2013 another key criterion in determining whether to grant emergency relief. Among other things, it noted, senior government officials \u201cattest[] that constructing something<\/em> approximating the height and mass of the intended above-ground ballroom is \u2018crucial\u2019 to the security of the below-ground military installation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his six-page dissent, which Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined, Roberts countered that \u201c[a] historic preservationist such as Hoagland can be aesthetically injured in a concrete, particularized way by the transformation of a historic building that she frequently enjoys, just as,\u201d based on prior court precedent, \u201can environmentalist can sustain a concrete, particularized aesthetic injury from the extinction of a particular animal or the transformation of a particular forest or river that he regularly enjoys.\u201d Roberts ended the opinion by quoting Winston Churchill, who said that \u201c[w]e shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.\u201d \u201cAll the more reason,\u201d according to Roberts, \u201cto ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People\u2019s House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The 3-3-2-1 court?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Supreme Court on Monday granted the Trump administration\u2019s request to allow construction on a new White House ballroom to continue. By a vote of 5-4, the court paused a ruling by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that would have halted above-ground construction of the ballroom project. Read more Justice Alito\u2019s financial disclosure for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-court-news"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court allows construction on White House ballroom to continue - 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=588\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court allows construction on White House ballroom to continue - American Service Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Supreme Court on Monday granted the Trump administration\u2019s request to allow construction on a new White House ballroom to continue. 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