Seven Republican senators broke with President Donald Trump on Thursday and backed a Democratic amendment that would have blocked construction of his yet-to-be-built East Wing ballroom unless Congress signed off first. The effort failed anyway, falling 53-46 in the Senate after it needed 60 votes to pass.
The vote came as Republicans were still trying to manage the politics of the White House State Ballroom, a project that has already moved through one funding fight. GOP lawmakers had initially tried to use their $70 billion immigration enforcement bill to steer $220 million toward ballroom security, then stripped that money out amid opposition and the strict rules of the filibuster-skirting reconciliation process.
The amendment would have gone further than the security fight. It would have barred both federal funds and private donations from being used to build the ballroom unless Trump first won congressional approval. The seven Republicans who joined Democrats were Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Jerry Moran, Dan Sullivan, Thom Tillis, Jon Husted and Bill Cassidy.
That lineup mattered because it showed the resistance was not limited to Democrats. Collins, Husted and Sullivan are all running for reelection in battleground states, and all three had already broken with their party on an earlier amendment aimed at thwarting the creation of the Justice Department’s anti-weaponization fund.
Cassidy added one more wrinkle after the vote was over. He received consent to change his position in favor of the amendment after the roll call had closed, a small procedural step that did nothing to change the outcome but underscored how narrow the Republican dissent really was.
Schumer’s office cast the debate as a fight over priorities and power, saying Trump has fought for his ballroom harder than he has fought to lower costs and that Congress should be a check on his corruption. But Thursday’s result left that check in place only in theory: the ballroom fight is now headed back to the White House with no new vote scheduled and no sign yet that Trump will seek the approval the amendment would have required.
