The Trump administration returned to the Supreme Court last week, once again asking the justices to intervene in its ongoing efforts to build a new White House ballroom. On Aug. 31, a divided court paused a ruling by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that would have halted above-ground construction on the project. In a petition filed on Nov. 5, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the court to reverse the lower court’s ruling outright or to take up the case and hear oral arguments on the merits. He told the justices that their earlier ruling “has all but answered the question presented” by the dispute, and that the project “should be permitted to move forward outside the shadow of judicial superintendence.”
Construction on the project began in October of last year with the demolition of the East Wing. In December, the National Trust for Historic Preservation – a private nonprofit that describes itself as having “led the movement to save America’s historic places” “[f]or more than 75 years” – filed a lawsuit in federal court, seeking to block the construction until the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts could review the plans for the construction; the NCPC could approve those plans; and Congress could authorize the construction.
To support its argument that it had a legal right to sue, known as standing, the trust 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 “expertise in historic architecture,” claimed that the project caused “‘injuries’ to her ‘aesthetic, cultural, and historical interests’ because she finds the ‘scale,’ ‘height,’ and ‘massing’ of the government’s design distasteful.”
Senior U.S. District Judge Leon issued an order in late March that temporarily barred the construction of the ballroom above ground but allowed underground construction – of, for example, bomb shelters and bunkers – to move forward, along with any above-ground construction necessary for safety and security.
Before Leon’s ruling could go into effect, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit froze it to give that court time to consider the government’s appeal. In August, a divided three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit upheld Leon’s ruling but delayed its effective date for 14 days to allow the federal government to go to the Supreme Court.
Writing for the majority, Judges Patricia Millett and Bradley Garcia emphasized that Congress, and only Congress, has the power “to regulate the construction and demolition of White House structures,” but it has not approved any money for the ballroom construction.
In her dissent, Judge Neomi Rao contended (among other things) that the trust did not have a legal right to bring a lawsuit, known as standing, to try to stop the ballroom construction.
Calling Leon’s ruling “extraordinary and unlawful,” the Trump administration came to the court on its interim docket on Aug. 13. Sauer asked the justices to temporarily pause Leon’s ruling, telling them that it would “halt 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.” He argued that the trust lacks standing to sue, because its claims rest on a member’s “dislike” for the new construction – which, it said, is not the kind of injury that would allow the lawsuit to go forward.
On Aug. 21, the day that Leon’s order was scheduled to go into effect, Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay – that is, an order that kept Leon’s order on hold (and permitted construction to continue) – to give the justices additional time to consider the government’s request.
By a vote of 5-4, the court on Aug. 31 granted the government’s application and continued the pause on Leon’s order. In an eight-page, unsigned opinion, the majority stressed that it was not deciding whether the project was legal. Instead, it said, the trust likely lacks standing to challenge the project at all. The harms that Hoagland alleges, the majority wrote, are not the kind of “concrete” and specific injuries required to bring a lawsuit. Moreover, the majority said, if Leon’s order were allowed to go into effect, the government would be permanently harmed – another key criterion in determining whether to grant emergency relief. Among other things, it noted, senior government officials “attest[] that constructing something approximating the height and mass of the intended above-ground ballroom is ‘crucial’ to the security of the below-ground military installation.”
Roberts dissented, in an opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. In his view, the construction “is likely unlawful,” and the majority’s decision was “no victory for the separation of powers.” He contended that the trust did have standing to sue because “[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,” based on prior court precedent, “an 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.”
In its Nov. 5 petition, the Trump administration argued that “the East Wing renovation is a vital national-security effort taking place on the White House grounds with the President’s personal involvement,” and that it has “proceeded swiftly since construction began in October 2025, in keeping with the urgency of remedying the East Wing’s obsolete and vulnerable security infrastructure, all as this President faces an onslaught of assassination attempts.” Because Leon’s order blocked the project “at the behest of a single passerby who complains that she expects to dislike its ultimate design,” Sauer wrote, his “decision is demonstrably flawed.”
Sauer acknowledged that the court’s Aug. 31 ruling came on the interim docket and therefore “only involve[d] a preliminary look at the merits and equities” of the dispute. But, he continued, in this case “[t]here is nothing further or new that this Court needs to decide after its” earlier opinion “in order to answer the question presented” by the government’s new filing – specifically, whether Leon was wrong to block “the ongoing renovation of the East Wing of the White House.” This is especially true, Sauer suggested, given the court made its Aug. 31 decision “after extensive briefing, and issue[d] detailed majority and dissenting opinions addressing” the issues in the case.
Sauer urged the court to summarily reverse Leon’s decision – that is, to reverse it without additional briefing or oral argument – or, at a minimum, grant review and hear oral arguments.
The trust’s response to the government’s petition is currently due on Dec. 7.
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[ H/T SCOTUSblog ]
