The Solicitor General asked the Supreme Court on August 14 to let construction of a new White House ballroom resume, filing an emergency application that recasts a demolition dispute as a question about the limits of judicial power over the presidency [1]. D. John Sauer argued that the president 'is not a tenant, but rather the sole, elected head of the Executive Branch,' and that lower courts 'wrongly viewed the President as a mere "tenant" of the White House ... with the district judge as his de facto landlord' [1].
The filing follows a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit roughly a week earlier that left a block on the project in place. That court found the White House 'very likely' lacked the authority to demolish and rebuild the East Wing without congressional approval [1]. A federal court had halted above-ground construction while permitting underground work, including a bunker, to continue [1].
The project at issue is large. The administration describes a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, built in the footprint of the demolished East Wing, running 'five stories deep and 70 feet high' and including a bunker and medical facilities [1]. The government puts the price at roughly $400 million and says the work is '65% complete in its entirety' [1]. The application leans on a national-security rationale, telling the justices the construction is tied to assassination threats and is 'absolutely required and should not be enjoined' [1].
How the ballroom is paid for is part of what drew judicial scrutiny. According to the reporting, the money runs from private corporate donors, including Lockheed Martin, Amazon, and Microsoft, through a nonprofit organization, then to the National Park Service, and finally into a presidential repair and maintenance account [1]. District Judge Richard Leon described that payment mechanism as a 'Rube Goldberg' machine [1].
The steel-man for the administration is straightforward: presidents have long altered and maintained the White House, and the executive has a real interest in the physical security of the building and its occupant. The government's own framing goes further than upkeep, though. By arguing that the president is the 'sole, elected head of the Executive Branch' rather than a tenant, the application asks the justices to decide whether a court can order the president to stop rebuilding the house he occupies, and not merely whether this particular project was authorized. That is the question now in front of the Supreme Court.
