Roughly 150 Democratic lawmakers asked a court on Thursday to stop White House ballroom construction unless Congress explicitly approves it, escalating a fight over President Trump’s East Wing project just as appellate judges prepare to hear the case next week.
The coalition, led by California Reps. Robert Garcia and Jared Huffman and Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, told the court the administration cannot keep building on White House grounds without express congressional consent. Garcia put the fight bluntly: “President Trump is building a billion-dollar ballroom. Everyone should be disgusted by his illegal and unconstitutional vanity project. We are fighting this in court,” he said.
The filing lands in an already crowded legal battle over a privately funded $400 million demolition and construction plan that would remake part of the White House grounds. The Trump administration says a statute covering routine maintenance and repairs lets it move ahead, even though Congress has appropriated about $2.5 million for that purpose, far short of the cost of the project now before the court.
Lawyers for the Democrats argued that the president has no right to demolish structures or build new ones on the White House grounds without congressional authorization and money approved by lawmakers. They wrote that “The President cannot undertake any construction at the White House—much less demolish one of its wings—without clear authorization from Congress, as well as an appropriation of funds to do so,” and added that “Congress does not fund largescale construction projects with drop-in-the-bucket funding.”
The dispute is not just about marble, security and office space. It also has become a test of who controls federal property when private money enters the picture. The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued late last year, and in March a federal judge ruled that construction could not proceed until Congress green-lit the project. A panel of appellate judges later let work continue for now, while also setting arguments for next week.
That security argument is now part of the case as well. Todd Blanche has said in recent filings that reconstructing the East Wing is a matter of national security, pointing to the shootings at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and near the Eisenhower Executive Office Building last Saturday. Senate Republicans briefly considered a measure that would have set aside a billion dollars to bolster ballroom security, but the provision was dropped from a larger GOP bill.
Other challengers added their own warnings on Wednesday. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Campaign Legal Center said accepting ballroom donations from companies and individuals with business before the government raises conflict-of-interest concerns, while a separate consortium of architects and preservationists said the president has no inherent authority to order the destruction of historic federal property in a national park and then use private funds to build a “massive, discordant, above-ground ballroom.”
For now, the issue before the appellate panel is narrow but consequential: whether the White House project can keep moving before Congress says yes in so many words. If the judges side with the lawmakers, the work stops again. If they do not, Trump’s East Wing overhaul will keep advancing while the broader question of how far a president can go on White House grounds stays open.
