Lower-court rulings would have blocked construction of the 90,000-square-foot ballroom after finding that the Trump administration should have first sought approval from Congress.
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Supreme Court allows White House ballroom construction called 'likely unlawful' by chief justice
Born in the shadow of the Executive, the separation of powers enters its latest stage: a ballroom, constructed with the Supreme Court's blessing and the chief justice's dissent. The headline tells it plain—'likely unlawful,' in the chief's own hand, but the work proceeds. In my day, we respected the odd penny-ante division of labor; now the rules are folded up like bunting between parties. The ballroom survives, and the norm it replaces is survived only by its own dissent. Preceded in death by the notion that the law is a wall, not a door. In lieu of flowers, attend your local council meeting: the separation may not be dead, but it’s certainly in hospice. The column runs longer on Page 2, but the eulogy is already written—the floor now belongs to those who build first and ask later.
“They built the ballroom, and the highest judge in the land called it illegal. Separation of powers used to mean something; now it’s just a floor plan.”
“The Court allows the project, but the chief justice’s opinion is only one voice. The system works—well, it works for some. Did I say that? I mean, precedent matters, but sometimes precedent is flexible. It’s not my job to decide what’s unlawful. That’s for the—well, you know.”
The receipts
Chief Justice John Roberts broke with his conservative colleagues in a Supreme Court decision Monday that allowed construction on the proposed White House ballroom to continue, saying the ruling upsets the separation of powers. Roberts…
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US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts recently let construction on President Donald Trump's White House ballroom continue in a temporary solo decision, but on Monday he sided with the three liberals against the five right-wingers who…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.