Supreme Court Grants Stay on Order Stopping White House Ballroom Construction
Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the three leftist justices.
The Supreme Court granted, 5-4, the Trump administration a stay that stopped construction of the White House ballroom.
Earlier this month, the the D. C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a preliminary injunction blocking construction of the White House ballroom.
Just the appeals court, SCOTUS did not grant the stay based on the legality of the construction.
The majority concluded that the administration will likely succeed in a lawsuit brought against the National Trust for Historic Preservation since it “lacks standing to challenge the East Wing Project.”
The Trust attempted to establish standing on a declaration by member Alison Hoagland (citations omitted):
Hoagland says that she lives in Washington, D.C., and expects to visit the neighborhood around the White House “about once a month.” She asserts that having to view the finished ballroom the government is constructing would cause her to suffer “injuries” to her “aesthetic, cultural, and historical interests” because she finds the “scale,” “height,” and “massing” of the government’s design distasteful. On the strength of that declaration, the Trust contends, it has Article III standing to challenge the East Wing project.
“This Court has not found standing in circumstances like these before,” wrote the majority. “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.”
In fact, SCOTUS cited a few cases that set the standard for standing: “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.’”
Considering how everything offends at least one person nowadays, I guess we cannot change anything.
Even SCOTUS thought of that (omitted citation):
Perhaps nearly any government action or project offends someone’s sensibilities. And adopting the Trust’s “unprecedented and limitless” view that offense alone suffices to establish a concrete and particularized injury would seemingly usher in a world where “virtually every citizen had standing to challenge virtually every government action that they do not like—an approach to standing that this Court has consistently rejected as flatly inconsistent with Article III.” Absent some considerable revision to our existing standing doctrine, then, the government is likely to succeed on the merits.
The majority also wrote that “[T]he district court likely excessed its Article III authority to enjoin the activities of a coordinate branch of government.”
“And courts may not exceed the bounds of their lawful authority simply because they may think another branch has exceeded its own,” they added.
Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the three leftist justices.
Roberts wrote that the ballroom’s “construction is likely unlawful.”
Roberts cited 40 U.S.C. §8106, which states that “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.”
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While Trump builds a ballroom Roberts keeps adding to his legacy of shame and failure,
His dissent was truly embarrassing.
He could’ve been creative and called it a “tent” like he called the Obama Care penalty a “tax”.
Excellent anology
It was a tax, and he proved it in painstaking detail, going through all the differences between a tax and a penalty and showing how it fit all the criteria for a tax and none for a penalty. I don’t see how anyone can read that section of the opinion and still come away claiming it was a penalty and not a tax.
The only argument for calling it a penalty was that the president and congress had loudly claimed so, and the obvious rejoinder is that they lied. Since when is it or should it be the courts’ custom to trust what politicians say?
Well, even as a tax (which it wasn’t no matter how Roberts couched it in parsed lawyer language designed to exhaust logic and reason), it ain’t working out so good for the recipients who were promised free or low-cost healthcare. When people don’t play, basically telling this contemptible grift call ObamaCare ‘I’m out!’, whose going to prop up the remaining Healthcare Welfare people who thought it was free? Taxpayers. Socialized healthcare by the backdoor is not a tax, it’s theft.
Roberts proved clearly that it was a tax.
It’s now gone, anyway.
As for how it worked out, that’s got nothing to do with Roberts. He didn’t, couldn’t, and had a duty not to even consider that. His duty was to consider only whether it was within Congress’s powers to legislate it or not.
He achieved a clear SCOTUS majority for the proposition that Congress can’t force anyone to buy anything. He got a majority saying that a penalty for not buying something is unconstitutional. That’s a major win.
Congress can of course impose taxes, whether they’re wise or foolish.
This is what I call the Dithering Cul-De-Sac, one bureaucrat handles one micro-part and says he or she is not responsible for the results or the other parts, effectively kickong the can to the next bureaucrat who does the same, and so on until said kicked can is turning RPM’s. Thing is, every single player is responsible for the failure, even if they are Pontius Pilate, thusly wash their hands to feel better about themselves. Roberts is the Ditherer poster child hiding behind his interpretation of the law to give himself a contrived clear conscience.
Did he come out against Obama’s basketball courts?
I dont think so
His hatred of Trump is insane
Please retire Roberts , please
No one sued over the basketball courts.
In addition, the basketball court renovated an existing outdoor tennis court to make the area dual purpose. Renovation is allowed under the statutes granting Congress to allocate funds for the White House budget for just such purposes.
The East Ballroom is not a “renovation.” It is new construction. It has a bigger, broader and taller “footprint” than the original building that is one the site.
This is a pretty stupid argument 🤣 Of course the new extension is a renovation of an existing structure. The left keeps telling us this because the remind us every single minute of the day that the old structure should not have been pulled down.
So make your mind up, if this isn’t an improvement on an existing structure the. The basketball courts aren’t an improvement on an existing structure either 🤣
Okay. Then show us one part of the previous East Wing that is standing.
You cannot because the structure was razed to the ground. That is not a “renovation,” that is demolition and construction of a new structure.
Once again, this is not a renovation. This is new construction..
This is from the majority opinion in the case:
Even the majority of justices know that this is not a “renovation.” It is the demolition of an old structure and the construction of a new one.
(I suspect that you haven’t even bothered to read the opinion.)
In the world outside of Washington, most codes consider the replacement of over 50% of a structure to not be a “renovation,” but “new construction.”
Clearly you are speaking out of ignorance here. The basketball court involved placing a rim and lines on the existing tennis court. The tennis court is still there and usable.
The tennis court was not demolished or ripped up. You cannot say that about the East Wing which was demolished.
By the way, even President Trump, in remarks on the new East Wing, said they were going to “construct a new East Wing that will make the country proud for generations of Presidents.”
So you go ahead and tell Trump he doesn’t know what he is talking about or his remarks were “stupid.”
That’s just an outright lie. There is no existing structure any more. The old building that existed on that site was demolished, and an entirely new building is to be constructed on the site. If it’s in a park, then it needs Congress’s express permission.
So you admit that the old structure was pulled down, and this is to be new construction. So how can you call it a renovation?
A basketball court is not a structure.
Lots of people have gotten away with building McMansions by tearing down an existing house and leaving only the foundation, and expanding that foundation to accept a house twice the size. Lots of local zoning condes consider it a “renovation”.
Justice Millhouse,
Yes it’s been completely renovated. It’s been renovated so hard it now identifies as a ball room sweetie 🤣🤣
The ‘suer’ is some historic preservation woman with an axe to grind p who whined about the construction project. So?
Her approach is similar to the old joke about a couple of Priests who walk into the Sistine Chapel at year 3 of 7 of ‘the painting job’, hands clasped behind their back with necks craning upward as Michelangelo works away.
Looking up they shout, “We don’t get it.”
Michelangelo yells down, “Come back in four years.”
This woman was looking for a problem midstream on a project because she despises our president…she is to be dismissed.
Camperfixer opined:
Except that $352+ million dollars being used on the construction is from federal funding allocated specifically for “Secret Service personnel, training facilities, technology and related costs, not construction.”
The deception here is that when Trump said that the construction would be funded by donations, the thought (and arguably the intent of Trump’s wording) was that the entirety of the construction would be paid for by donations.
Now the President is saying that only the construction of the ballroom itself will be paid for by donations, Things such as the “bunker,” bulletproof glass, security systems within the entire East Wing structure, etc., are all coming from tax dollars.
This fact is well documented.
The_Mew_Cat put forth:
I have sat on 4 different P&Z boards in 3 different states.
The dividing line for “renovation” or “construction” has always been 50% or less. Once you cross that 50% line, you are in new construction.
If you raze a building to construct a new building, that is construction – not renovation.
A basketball court is not a building or structure. Therefore even if the White House is inside a “park” the statute doesn’t apply. The proposed ballroom is definitely a “building”, so the only question is whether it’s in a “park”.
If a “park” must admit public visitors for recreational or tourism purposes… that is a hard question. The WH has done those things, but not always.
What makes you suppose that this must be so?
I went looking in that chapter for a definition of “park” as it is used in that chapter, and didn’t find one.
Who cares? Private funds for a beautification (and secure building) project. What could anyone beef about that? Well, except someone willing to slice and dice language to undermine our president.
Leave it be, let it get finished…then watch as foreign dignitaries feel safer in a proper ballroom…and likely future presidents as well.
This is stupid to try and stop good progress for no reason other than ‘to oppose’ PDJT. Grade schoolers on the playground would be appalled at the childishness by some adults..
Camperfixer, so you don’t care about the law?! You don’t care if the president is openly breaking the law?!
And again you mention “private funds”, as if that were somehow relevant. How do you imagine that using private funds exempts the building from the need for congress’s permission (if indeed it requires it)?
Ahh, ‘the law’…which has become THE cudgel to ruin lives and make accidents into crimes, to reduce freedoms, to turn ordinary citizens into criminals…while the same DA’s allow actual criminals free passes 1,2, 30 times.
Laws are critical for a proper society…except that in our enlightened society lawyers tend to define simple language into their own terms then argue forever about the meaning of those terms depending on their desired outcome.
PDJT didn’t’ break any laws’…you mean to tell me he doesn’t have the most brilliant law scholars at his disposal to explain what he can and cannot do, considering his every word and move are under a massive microscope in order for other whiny lawyers to find some micron of fault? In the latter…no, I don’t respect those types or laws used to harm an otherwise good endeavor. Besides, why make this an issue? Opposition argument is counterproductive to the needs of The Peoples House.
By the way, some ninny comes up with a local law requiring all ‘food stands’ to meet so-called Health Dept. regs. Little girl sets up a lemonade stand at her neighborhood corner to earn some money for a new bike, as generations have done benignly. Next thing some ninny without a life calls the cops on her and they shut her down for not having a permit or collecting sales tax. Really? Well now…it’The Law’ cop tells the crying girl. Sorry, ‘The Law’ and its purveyors; lawyers, DA’s, judges et al, have gone too far with their ‘help’.
A true zero, that keeps scoring zero.
If the Democrats take either House of Congress this Nov, they will have standing to sue. This means the deadline for completion is Jan 3 2027.
I would think that all the people who had to use a porta pottie behind the white house would have more standing.
And here we have Paula discovering a new legal term: sitting, meaning the feminine of standing. 😜
Sweet Sister Josephine.
😂
Whether Democrat filth has a majority or not has zero to do with standing in court. The only thing a majority gives them is unstoppable power to play dirty. But then, filth is their natural environment.
That’s not true at all. If the Democrats have a majority in both houses, then they can speak for the Congress and sue to stop the construction because the statute says it needs their permission and Trump never bothered asking for it.
Even if they only win one house, they can sue on behalf of that house, since its permission would be required. Again, this is all on the assumption that it’s inside a park, as defined for the purposes of this statute. I’m still not convinced of that.
Likely most of the people who had to use a porta pottie behind the white house were- to some degree- standing at the time. 🤪
🙂
Roberts wrote that the ballroom’s “construction is likely unlawful.”
I dare you to issue to the order to tear it down.
Whatever happened to “beyond all reasonable doubt” before making a stupid decision?
“Beyond all reasonable doubt” is standard for a conviction in criminal trials.
This is not a criminal trial.
Yeah, that’s just stupid. Reasonable doubt is not the standard here.
Issuing an order to tear down the ongoing construction was not before the Court.
Whether to overturn a previous order stopping construction or issue a stay to stop construction was before the could.
Leftists can leave anything alone.
I could be wrong but I’m of the opinion that the ballroom, while necessary, wasn’t essential.
The new secure situation room that is being built beneath it was supposed to be secret and the ballroom a ruse for its construction. That would explain the 24/7 effort to completion, not the lawsuit per se.
I’m glad SCOTUS declined to intervene here. Don’t worry, the next D president will use both facilities. There will be no wrecking crew.
The underground construction is neither a building nor a structure, and therefore doesn’t need anyone’s permission, even if it’s in a park. The ballroom itself is a building, and therefore if it’s in a park it needs Congress’s permission.
That may not be your best thought you have ever stated.
The demolition of the old East Wing included the demolition of the foundation. That would be the foundation that supports the building and as such is part of the building / structure.
If only.
Oops. Typo. “Can’t”
Well, I guess we could just leave a big old hole in the ground. I’m sure the communists would love that
It’s like Trump is slowly winning a game of D&D, despite his opponents responding to every move he makes by casting a “lose two turns” spell.
It used to be a joke, but is now affirmed by the Supreme Court: Butthurt is not a tort. No Standing.
A no-brainer…private funds, dual use for the site (top and underneath). Ruse or not (ballroom above, secure center below), the secure facility was an imperative, as was/is the ballroom; no more backyard tents and hotel rooms that Secret Service can’t protect from some lunatic operative hopped up on psychotropics.
Or cross-sex hormones.
The funding source is irrelevant. It is illegal for anyone to build any building or structure inside a park in DC without Congress’s express permission. It makes no difference who pays for it, or how. Nor is national security a defense. There is no “national security” exception to the law.
No one except someone looking for an argument cares a wit about vacuous whiny arguments because they are miserable people.
We The People’s House needed this done decades ago, other presidents never got it doen, now it’s getting done and people are complaining. And to those who want to slice and dice language and statute simply because PDJT knows what he is doing and is getting it done in short order, I say: Move, follow, or get out of the way.
So you say Trump can break the law as much as he likes and no one should care. So you’re happy with Trump being a criminal. Does that makes you a criminal too?
Who cares what “We The People’s House” needs? How does that justify breaking the law?
It’s one thing to argue whether it does actually break the law. I’m not convinced that it does. But you’re saying you don’t care, let’s all be criminals, let’s rob banks and do whatever we like, so long as you like the result. Okay, so how can you criticize illegal immigrants? If Trump can break the law, why can’t they?
Is there a criminal sanction.if this law is broken? If not, it’s merely unlawful, not criminal.
Ahh, but if Obama decided to do it, and I like a million others, contend a new facility is necessary, there would be no zero outcry. Look at O’s Chicago Monolith…ugliest building on the planet. If that’s the standard then God help us. PDJT isn’t’ breaking the law’, that is a convenient argument to provide a position of opposition. No real American cares…take a poll…except for the crazies We The People support this project whole-heartedly…and past Presidents never moved on it because they aren’t Trump, who could develop this in his sleep…which is why all the hue and cry. Get over it…maybe a little support of the man would go a long way to gettin’ it finished in short order instead of roadblocks at every turn, also better for the angst levels.
Once again, Roberts shows himself to be the worst chief justice since Roger Taney. He seems to want that legacy. And he has earned.
WTF is wrong with Roberts?
Even if we were to assume he is right regarding likelihood of the construction being found to be unlawful, they still don’t have standing.
Giving him the most benefit of the doubt possible, how often do Justices take a side they know is wrong to make a point because they know there are enough votes for the correct decision anyway?
“Making Sense Of The Chief Justice’s Tango In The Ballroom Case
It was the Chief, and not KBJ, who was holding up the case. Was he trying to flip ACB’s vote?”
I believe this is true, he was trying to turn the little lady and I’m surprised he didn’t
Homey Barrett for the Win.
It is indeed ballsy(?) to have an AWFL try to expand her aesthetic all the way to SCOTUS.
Also Robert’s citing a something different that the plaintiffs did not apparently use is making a new argument for another attack. Sort of his finding ACA of a Schrödinger’s “tax”
Huh?! What on earth are you talking about now?
She asserts that having to view the finished ballroom the government is constructing would cause her to suffer “injuries” to her “aesthetic, cultural, and historical interests” because she finds the “scale,” “height,” and “massing” of the government’s design distasteful. On the strength of that declaration, the Trust contends, it has Article III standing to challenge the East Wing project. I kinda fell the same way about the people in Congress. If that is the basis for judgement, half of DC should be torn down. What about all the street vendors and homelee there.
More made-up senseless emoting from another aggrieved woman with an axe to grind. Hear that? Tiniest of violins.
Alternative headline:
‘SCOTUS tells enraged AWFL Karen to calm down and be quiet’
Exactly…take a pill woman (as dad would say to some talking head getting all exercised over nothing).
Non-lawyer here, but I see Roberts referred to 40 U.S.C. §8106. Did any of them ever cover 54 U.S. Code § 307104 – Inapplicability of division to White House, Supreme Court building, or United States Capitol? “Nothing in this division applies to the White House and its grounds, the Supreme Court building and its grounds, or the United States Capitol and its related buildings and grounds.”
“Nothing in this division“. How is it not obvious to you that 40 USC § 8106 is not part of 54 USC Subtitle 3 Division A?
Alison Hoagland, another leftist nut job with TDS. After the ballroom, we need Trump to start a massive program to build more mental hospitals.
“ She asserts that having to view the finished ballroom the government is constructing would cause her to suffer “injuries” to her “aesthetic, cultural, and historical interests” because she finds the “scale,” “height,” and “massing” of the government’s design distasteful.”
She can go suck a lemon. I’m sure she doesn’t mind other absurdities built with taxpayer money over the years. She just doesn’t want anything Federal with the name “TRUMP” anywhere. Not even a miserable water fountain.
But if it really offends her, ahem, “aesthetic, cultural, and historical interests”, I can guarantee you, right now: Trump can do much worse.
He can play AC/DC on loop, at the ballroom’s inauguration night.
Was thinking Metallica like they do at Gitmo (apparently).
How can one call America the greatest country in the world, if visiting diplomats, dignitaries, whatever, must use a porta potty when attending formal dinners. That goes for our own VIP’s as well. That’s just asinine.
“Excessed”?! What an ugly neologism, when “exceeded” is right there.
That is correct, provided that the White House grounds are indeed in something called the “Presidential Park”, and that this is a “park” within the meaning of that statute. I had a brief scan through 40 USC ch. 81 looking for a definition of the term “park”, but couldn’t find one. I’m not convinced that the White House is included in this law.
The existing structure is the White House. A section of the existing structure was torn down for an improvement that the Chief Executive felt was necessary for many reasons, including security, entertaining foreign dignitaries, a bomb shelter, underground military installations, a modern kitchen, etc. There is little likelihood that President Trump will benefit from its intended use.
No, it isn’t. Remember when Trump promised that the ballroom project would not touch the White House itself? He was right. It hasn’t. The East Wing was a separate building, and it was demolished. Trump never said it wouldn’t be. It was of no particular value, and few will miss it. And the proposed new ballroom will likewise be a separate building, a new and larger East Wing.
Did this lady or the organization she belongs to file suits to block the removal of statues in DC or any other area? I would think that would also cause her psychological damage as she would not see them during her walks around the city.
What law exists that forbids the city from removing statues it doesn’t like? Let alone other cities?
And even if such a law did exist, why should she sue? Maybe she didn’t like those statues either, and would thus not be harmed by their absence. But first find such a law, because I don’t believe there is one.
Always ‘the law’…we are talking about common sense here, which ‘the law’ has managed to extricate from itself.
Yes, of course always the law. What else matters? You have no right to follow “common sense” if it’s against the law.
Or are you for illegal immigration, because after all it’s just common sense that anyone would want to be in the USA and not in some “shithole country” as the President put it, so why should they care that there are laws against it?
“Or are you for illegal immigration, because after all it’s just common sense that anyone would want to be in the USA…”
Total strawman illogical argument. It wasn’t a blanket statement (but a lawyer would believe it was).
I grew up fifteen minutes from Washington’s Crossing…steeped in Colonial history…so no, you come here illegally you have committed a crime, don’t care if you ‘believe’ you should live here…we have [proper] immigration laws that covers simple stuff like wanting to be a US Citizen…yet some lawyers and a few nutjobs in positions of power seem to toss those aside because their voting block is getting deported by ICE, a Federal agency tasked with keeping illegal aliens out of our country. ICE gets death threats for doing their rightful job…and some lawyers support that. Can’t have it both ways.
This should prove beyond a doubt that TDS is a real mental illness. How can you hate the fact that our country needs a venue for State Dinners, etc., that won’t require tents to be set up on the lawn with porta potties. Not only is that an embarrassment, but so is the fact that so many are against this improvement.
Alison Hoagland clearly is hormonal and cannot be held to her actions.
Lindsey Clancy’s lunatic supporters (😡😡) would agree.
I don’t like Justice Roberts’ face. His opinions must thus be invalid. We have precedent for this, now, so I’m good.
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