The Supreme Court on Friday afternoon allowed construction on a new 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom to continue – at least for now. Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon had issued an order, slated to go into effect at the end of the day, that would have stopped above-ground work on the project. But Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order, known as an administrative stay, that kept Leon’s order on hold to give the justices more time to consider the Trump administration’s request to pause it.
The brief, one-sentence stay did not indicate when the justices might act on the government’s request. Leon’s order has never gone into effect, permitting the Trump administration to move forward with construction while the case made its way toward the Supreme Court. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court last week that there was “a 250-person crew working 20 hours a day, 7 days a week to keep the Project ahead of schedule and under budget”; as a result, he wrote, as of last week, the project was “65% complete in its entirety, and moving quickly toward total completion.”
The dispute dates back to last fall, when the Trump administration tore down the East Wing of the White House to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom – just slightly smaller than one-and-a-half football fields. The National Trust for Historic Preservation went to federal court in Washington, D.C., in December, seeking to pause construction while the project obtained the necessary approvals and authorization from Congress.
Leon issued an order that temporarily prohibited the Trump administration from carrying out most construction above ground but allowed underground construction of security features such as bomb shelters and bunkers to go forward. That order remained on hold while the government’s appeal made its way to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which on Aug. 7 affirmed his ruling but gave the federal government 14 days to seek relief from the Supreme Court, keeping the order on hold and allowing construction to continue.
The Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on Aug. 14, asking the justices to intervene. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices that Leon’s ruling would “halt the ongoing construction of the integrated military complex, including a totally secure ballroom space, at the East Wing of the White House, which is vitally required by national security.” The Trump administration contended that the trust does not have a legal right to sue, known as standing. It also pushed back against the conclusion by the D.C. Circuit majority that Congress must authorize the ballroom project, telling the justices that Congress has authorized the project, both by giving Trump and other presidents the power “to make ‘alteration[s]’ and ‘improvement[s]’ to the White House” and because it “broadly authorized the Executive to construct buildings in national parks.”
In a brief filed on Tuesday, the National Trust – represented by Tad Heuer of Foley Hoag – argued that the Trump administration was trying to “outrun judicial review” by fast-tracking construction of the whole project and then telling the court it was too late for the justices to step in, because the project is now “beyond the point of no return.” But the government’s “efforts to foil judicial review and arrogate Congress’s exclusive powers should not be rewarded with a stay that allows [it] to complete a ballroom [it] lacked any authority to commence in the first place,” Heuer contended.
After having not initially acted on Sauer’s request, in his Aug. 14 filing, for an “immediate” administrative stay, Roberts – who has primary responsibility for emergency appeals from the District of Columbia – granted one on Friday.
Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Supreme Court allows White House ballroom construction to continue for now, SCOTUSblog (Aug. 21, 2026, 2:55 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/08/supreme-court-allows-white-house-ballroom-construction-to-continue-for-now/