The Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a significant victory on Monday by allowing construction of the White House ballroom project to continue, rebuffing two lower federal courts that had ruled against the president.
The high court ruled 5-4 in favor of allowing the massive East Wing renovation to proceed, finding the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the nonprofit preservationist group that filed the lawsuit, did not have standing to challenge the White House construction project.
“This Court has not found standing in circumstances like these before,” the unsigned per curiam ruling said. “To the contrary, we have repeatedly held that mere offense, disagreement, or distaste does not qualify as a concrete and particularized injury under Article III.”
“As we have put it, ‘this Court has long made clear that distress at or disagreement with the activities of others is not a basis under Article III for a plaintiff to bring a federal lawsuit.’ Instead, to secure standing a plaintiff must identify some concrete and particularized injury ‘other than the psychological consequence presumably produced by observation of conduct with which one disagrees,’” the ruling continued, rejecting the group’s claims of alleged “harm” over how the proposed ballroom would look.
The majority opinion also found that the district court’s injunction halting construction “likely exceeded its Article III authority to enjoin the activities of a coordinate branch of government.” The ruling also noted that it was not deciding on whether the ballroom project itself is lawful, but instead that the group suing does not have standing to file the lawsuit and that the lower court likely overstepped its authority.
“Today, we do not pass upon the legality of the government’s East Wing project. We conclude only that, based on the submissions before us, the government is likely to prevail in showing that the Trust lacks Article III standing to challenge the project in federal court and that the remaining stay factors favor relief,” the majority ruling said.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined the five-justice unsigned majority opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the dissent, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in which he argued the ballroom project “is likely unlawful.”
“Pursuant to its plenary constitutional authority over the District of Columbia and federal property, Congress has explicitly prohibited the construction of any ‘building or structure … on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress,’” Roberts wrote, echoing the rulings of lower federal courts.
“The ballroom is a building or structure being erected on federal park grounds—President’s Park—in the District of Columbia. Yet Congress has not passed any law resembling ‘express authority’ for the Executive’s construction of it,” Roberts added, also rejecting the majority’s ruling that the preservationists group failed to show standing to file the lawsuit.
Roberts spent much of his six-page dissent emphasizing the historic nature of the White House complex, quoting former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the end of his opinion.
“In failing to appreciate as much, the Court misconceives the plaintiff’s injury, allowing the Executive’s likely infringement of the Legislature’s power of the purse and authority to regulate federal property in the District of Columbia to continue. Today’s decision is no victory for the separation of powers,” Roberts said.
TRUMP ASKS SUPREME COURT TO ALLOW WHITE HOUSE BALLROOM CONSTRUCTION TO CONTINUE
“Winston Churchill once remarked that ‘[w]e shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.’ All the more reason to ensure that those responsible follow the rules in deciding what to tear down and what to build up at the People’s House. I respectfully dissent,” Robert concluded.
Trump’s proposed ballroom project has been met with uproar from Democrats and activists since it was announced last year, as the president has continued to champion the project as a necessary upgrade for the White House complex. The preservationist group’s lawsuit is the main effort to stop the project.