AP (“Supreme Court lets White House continue construction on Trump’s $400 million ballroom“):
A divided Supreme Court on Monday allowed the White House to continue construction on a $400 million ballroom project as lawsuits play out, a win for President Donald Trump as he flexes unprecedented executive power and remakes the capital in his image.
The apparent 5-4 decision replaces a temporary order issued earlier this month, shortly before a court-ordered halt would have gone into effect.
That temporary order was signed by Chief Justice John Roberts, assigned to handle appeals from the capital. But he publicly disagreed with the latest decision, writing a strong dissent that said the project is likely unlawful because it hasn’t been approved by Congress.
“Today’s decision is no victory for the separation of powers,” Roberts wrote. The court’s three liberal-leaning justices agreed.
The majority, on the other hand, found the National Trust for Historic Preservation likely did not have the legal right to challenge the project.
The unsigned order pointed to government arguments that the ballroom would address national security concerns by shielding a planned underground military installation and offering a more secure structure for large events than the tents currently used.
By contrast, “the only harm the Trust claims is the offense one of its members will suffer from having to view a structure of the ‘scale,’ ‘height,’ and ‘massing’ the government intends,” it states.
[…]
The majority’s order did not directly decide the legality of the project, and the suit will return to lower courts. Documents filed in the case, though, say that key portions of the project could be complete within months — a quick timeline compared with a typical legal case.
The trust’s president and CEO, Brent Leggs, said the group was disappointed with the decision but pleased with Roberts’ dissent. “This is not the final decision on the merits of our case and does not resolve our fundamental argument — that each President is a temporary steward of the People’s House and does not have the unilateral authority to demolish and redesign it without the approval of Congress,” he said in a statement.
[…]
The lawsuit from the trust argued that Trump has no unilateral authority to undertake the work, which has included demolishing the East Wing. The group’s lawyers accused the White House of trying to “outrun the courts” by accelerating construction.
In lower courts, the administration has argued that the president has total authority to renovate the White House and other federal buildings.
The trust and the four dissenters, however, note that federal law prohibits the construction of any structure on federal parks or public grounds in D.C. “without express authority of Congress.”
Standing is a complicated legal issue, and I claim no expertise on the matter. In his dissent, Chief Justice Roberts observes,
That construction 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.” 40 U. S. C. §8106. 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.
But, alas, the unlawfulness of the action is not enough. The persons bringing the suit have to demonstrate they are suffering sufficient harm from the illegality to have standing to sue, since courts only have authority to resolve actual disputes. And, as Roberts notes, “To have standing to sue as the representative of its members, an organization such as the Trust must show, among other things, that one of its members would have standing to sue in her own right.” His argument in that regard is weak from a lay standpoint:
Given the distinctive nature of the White House and Hoagland’s focused and substantiated interest in viewing it in its traditional form, her aesthetic injury from the construction of the ballroom is concrete and particularized.
The White House is an iconic American building whose symbolism and history are wrapped up in its architecture. As President Theodore Roosevelt once remarked while thanking Congress for expressly appropriating funds for the construction of the East and West Wings: “The stately simplicity of [the White House’s] architecture is an expression of the character of the period in which it was built, and is in accord with the purposes it was designed to serve. It is a good thing to preserve such buildings as historic monuments which keep alive our sense of continuity with the Nation’s past.” 36 Cong. Rec. 12 (1902) (Roosevelt’s second annual message).
Hoagland, meanwhile, is deeply committed to the preservation of such historic American buildings, as evidenced by her decades-long membership in the Trust, leadership role in the organization, academic work as a professor of history and historic preservation, volunteer work providing presentations on the District of Columbia’s historic architecture, and authorship of works on historic American architecture. Given this commitment to the preservation of historic buildings, Hoagland enjoys viewing and appreciating such buildings in person. As a Capitol Hill resident, Hoagland regularly visits the White House to take in the historic building’s beauty and to appreciate its symbolism.
It is not obvious to me why her aesthetic harm is any more powerful than anyone else’s. Roberts cites some case law where somewhat similar harms were recognized as sufficient for standing; the majority argues otherwise.
It seems to me—again, from a lay standpoint—that the far better basis for standing is that The National Trust for Historic Preservation was chartered by Congress in 1949 to promote preservation of sites, buildings, and objects of national significance or interest. While it is not a regulatory agency, and has no direct authority to veto Trump’s construction plans, it has essentially been deputized by Congress to file lawsuits and otherwise weigh in on such matters.
Further, given the balance of harms here—lifting the stay essentially renders the case moot by the time it winds through the system — doing so on a highly debatable ruling on standing is highly problematic. Especially when the law is so direct: “A building or structure shall not be erected on any reservation, park, or public grounds of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress.”
