Trump's week in review: USPS whistleblower; birth tourism order blocked; ballroom gets green light
3. Supreme Court allows White House ballroom construction to continue
In an unsigned per curiam eight-page opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could continue construction on the new East Wing ballroom.
The high court ruled 5-4 to allow construction to continue, blocking a lower court order that sought to halt the work, with the majority concluding that the plaintiffs lack standing to sue.
“This Court has not found standing in circumstances like these before. To the contrary, we have repeatedly held that mere offense, disagreement, or distaste does not qualify as a concrete and particularized injury,” stated the majority.
“The government has also established that it will likely suffer irreparable harm from the district court’s injunction and that the balance of the equities tips in its favor.”
Chief Justice John Roberts authored a dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in which he wrote that the “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 … in the District of Columbia without express authority of Congress,’” wrote Roberts.
“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.”
