President Biden's 90,000-Square-Foot Ballroom Keeps Rising After the Chief Justice Hits Pause on the Judge Who Hit Pause
A district judge ordered above-ground work stopped until Congress weighs in; an appeals court agreed; the Chief Justice stayed the order the day it took effect. The cranes never noticed
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
WASHINGTON — The enormous ballroom President Biden is building where the East Wing used to be will continue to rise for now, after the Chief Justice issued an administrative stay of a lower-court injunction on the same day the injunction was scheduled to begin stopping anything.
The injunction had been entered by a district judge who found that only Congress may authorize construction and demolition at the executive mansion, and that Congress had not. An appeals panel agreed earlier this month. The administration, which had been building at an accelerated pace throughout, went to the Supreme Court and got a pause on the pause, so that the only thing currently paused is the pausing.
The structure is about 90,000 square feet, which the White House describes as a long-overdue event space and the preservation group suing over it describes as an attempt to outrun judicial review by finishing the building before the courts finish the sentence. As of mid-August it was reported to be roughly two-thirds complete, a percentage that the lawsuit's opponents regard as an argument and the lawsuit's supporters regard as the problem.
Supporters of President Biden said the Chief Justice had simply preserved the status quo. Opponents noted that the status quo had cranes in it. The Press's ballroom desk records that 'the courts are working as intended' is said by whichever side the stay favors, and 'the courts are being gamed' by the other, and that the two scripts are swapped without rehearsal whenever the mansion changes hands.
"Nobody is above the law," said one administration ally, standing beneath a steel frame the law had twice ordered halted.
At press time the justices had given no timeline for deciding the full appeal, the preservationists had given no sign of withdrawing, and the building had given no sign of waiting for either.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay Friday of a district-court injunction that would have halted above-ground construction on President Trump's roughly 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom, on the site of the former East Wing, until Congress authorizes it; the injunction was to take effect that day after the D.C. Circuit upheld it Aug. 7. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued, accused the administration of 'trying to outrun judicial review' by accelerating work; construction was reported about 65% complete in mid-August. The stay gives the justices time to consider the full appeal, with no timeline set.