Beyond debates over the preservation of history and high costs, President Donald Trump's renovation projects are at the center of a less visible legal fight — one whose stakes, according to a lawyer tracking the cases, extend to the limits of executive power.

In a column published Thursday on "The Contrarian" Substack, lawyer Lindsay Zimliki, who works for Democracy Defenders Act, noted that many lawsuits are fighting against the White House's claims that the president has absolute power over all of these projects.

"And the precedents established in these seemingly narrow disputes have consequences far beyond the projects at issue," she wrote. "A victory for the president in one of these cases would strengthen his hand the next time he or his administration tests the bounds of executive power, where the stakes for our democracy could be far greater."

The White House ballroom case

The White House ballroom lawsuit alleges that a president cannot start a major construction project on federal property without congressional approval — or, at the very least, review by the independent federal agencies that govern such projects, Zimliki explained. That claim tracks the Constitution's structure: Congress controls federal spending, and the Property Clause gives it authority to make all "needful Rules and Regulations" over property belonging to the United States. Construction in the capital has for decades run through review bodies such as the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, and even the last full-scale overhaul of the White House — Harry Truman's 1949–1952 gut-and-rebuild of the mansion's interior — was authorized and funded by Congress. Presidents have pressed that line before: in 2019, Trump declared a national emergency to redirect military construction money to his border wall after Congress declined to fully fund it, drawing years of litigation over the same boundary between presidential initiative and congressional control.

The lower court decision drew the line at the bunker versus the ballroom. After being rushed to the presidential bunker in 2020, Trump returned to the White House and sought to renovate it completely, adding his ballroom on top. The court said Trump could continue construction on the bunker, but not the ballroom. While the case works its way through the courts, the ballroom is on hold.

Trump has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming the pause was "extraordinary and unlawful." His case alleged that stopping construction put him in danger.

"The ruling could have significant consequences if, for instance, the president invokes national security concerns as a basis for interfering in elections," said Zimliki, listing examples. "The president has already invoked national security to justify expanding federal and presidential authority over elections, including proposals to seize voting equipment (after the 2020 election), federal efforts to investigate state election systems (2026, when he gave a prime-time address claiming to have declassified intelligence that showed vulnerabilities in American elections and foreign interference, and when he used the national security narrative to justify his demand for sweeping election-law changes like the SAVE Act), and executive orders."

The Kennedy Center litigation

The Kennedy Center lawsuits similarly deal with Trump appointing his own allies to the board and then having his appointees "take voting rights away from ex officio members." The center is Congress's creation — chartered in 1958 as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy and opened in 1971 — and its board has long mixed private trustees with government officials serving ex officio. Trump removed several sitting trustees and was elected chairman by his newly installed appointees in February 2025.

The president is responsible for more than 80 independent federal commissions and regulatory and collegial boards that a president gets to appoint people to. They include regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission and the National Labor Relations Board, which police competition and labor law nationwide. Some are full-time and major, while others are merely part-time, amounting to hundreds of Senate-confirmed appointments. Trump's efforts to take over these boards therefore extend beyond putting his name on the Kennedy Center.

The district court ruled that the Kennedy Center was established by Congress and that Trump remaking the board, closing the Center and renaming it "lacked statutory authority." The board has ignored the court's ruling and voted again to put his name on the building and close operations.

"The stakes in these cases extend far beyond a ballroom or a cultural institution. They may help define whether a president can use control over federal entities, national-security justifications, or other asserted executive powers to circumvent limits Congress has imposed," Zimliki concluded.

Source: Alternet