Who Gets To Sue

What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law

This episode explores constitutional law through the lens of controversial projects associated with Donald Trump, focusing on the proposed '

Key takeaways

• The Constitution grants Congress exclusive authority over federal property under the Property Clause, not the President.
• Trump's proposed ballroom violates historical sight lines and national significance protections established in Washington, D.C.'s original design.

Main topics

• Constitutional law and the Property Clause
• Executive overreach and presidential authority

Notable quotes

The president is just a steward. He or she is just a caretaker of the White House. The president does not own the White House in any sense at all.

Trump's new East Wing building would not just metaphorically, but literally break the sight line between the White House and the Capitol.

Conclusion

While Trump's ballroom project may currently be underway despite constitutional and legal challenges,

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) So it is Thursday, September 3rd at 8 a.m. as we record this. What are we going to be talking about today? Speaker 1 (0:06) Well, Roman, let's talk about the American burying beetle. Are you familiar with it? No. All right. Well, the American burying beetle or Nicrophorus americanus is the largest carrion beetle in North America. It's like about an inch or an inch and a half long. Speaker 2 (0:26) And Speaker 1 (0:26) it feeds itself by dragging dead animals into holes and covering them with an embalming fluid secreted from its anus. It's part of the great circle of life. Speaker 2 (0:38) Indeed. Beautiful nature. Speaker 1 (0:41) But over the past century, the range and population of the American burying beetle has been dramatically shrinking. And one scientific review declared in 1983. that the beetle had experienced one of the most disastrous declines of an insect's range ever recorded. Speaker 2 (0:58) And Speaker 1 (0:58) for that reason, in 1989, the beetle was listed as an endangered species under the Federal Endangered Species Act. But in 2020, the Trump administration reclassified the status of the beetle from endangered to merely threatened. in response to a petition from the Independent Petroleum Association of America. You see, the association saw that the protection of the beetle was kind of a threat to oil and gas development. Speaker 2 (1:25) I see. Speaker 1 (1:26) Now, the Center for Biological Development sued, and they argued that the beetle's protections had been improperly and unjustifiably downgraded. Now, the Center is a nonprofit organization. whose mission is to protect endangered species through activism and legal action. They're pretty big. They have about 1.7 million members. Speaker 2 (1:47) One Speaker 1 (1:48) of these members and an employee of the center was a Mr. Christopher Bugbee. He declared a declaration in federal court that it is his practice to visit Block Island in Rhode Island every summer with his family. And there he looks for and takes pictures of American Bering beetles. And Block Island happens to be a place where you can see them. Speaker 2 (2:09) Now, Speaker 1 (2:10) he said allowing the American burying beetles population to shrink even further would lead him, Bugbee, to suffer professional, aesthetic, spiritual, and recreational injuries. That potential threat, decided the appeals court, was just enough to let the center proceed with its lawsuit. And that decision wasn't radical. It was consistent with other kinds of cases appeals courts considered. Mr. Bugbee's harms didn't mean that the center would win their case. They did not, unfortunately. But it did mean that a court would consider their claims. And it turns out that a lawsuit about a bug that likes to drag dead animals into holes to eat their disintegrating bodies tells us something about the new ballroom Trump is building on the grounds of the White House. Speaker 2 (2:57) What is happening Speaker 1 (2:58) with that ballroom? And is it legal for Trump to build it in the first place? Time to find out. Let's do it. Speaker 2 (3:23) This is What Trump Can Teach Us About Con Law, an ongoing series of indeterminate length and sporadic release where we look at creepy bugs, tacky ballrooms, and what it means to be hurt by a law and use them to examine our Constitution like we never have before. Our music is from Doomtree Records. Our professor and neighbor is Elizabeth Jo. And I'm your fellow student and host, Roman Mars. Speaker 2 (3:54) Well, since you mentioned the ballroom, is it legal for him to do this at all? Speaker 1 (3:58) Well, no. The short answer is just no. But there are so many different reasons why building it is illegal that I thought today we'd talk about what those reasons are. And even though you think, well, it's just a ballroom, it's actually a symbol of how Trump views his own presidency. All right. So let's start with some background. In July of 2025, the White House announced plans to build what it called the state ballroom on the grounds of the White House. Have you seen the renderings for the ballroom? Speaker 2 (4:28) Yeah, I have. It's gargantuan and out of proportion with everything else. Yeah. Speaker 1 (4:33) Yeah. And the interior is going to be very gold. Very, very gold. Yeah. It's also going to be a very, very big ballroom. The announcement said that the ballroom would cover approximately 90,000 total square feet. and that the ballroom would be built with private funds. The site of the proposed ballroom would be the east wing of the White House. Most people are familiar with the west wing of the White House. That's where the president conducts his official business. That's where the Oval Office is located. In the middle is what's called the executive residence. That's the part of the White House we see in postcards and pictures. Speaker 2 (5:07) And Speaker 1 (5:08) the East Wing, at least until last year, was the site of a movie theater and offices for the First Lady. It's also the main visitor entrance. So if you've ever been on a tour of the White House, you entered through the East Wing. Speaker 2 (5:20) Now, Speaker 1 (5:21) the proposed East Wing would be 60 % larger than the White House residence by floor area because it's supposed to have seating for 1,000 guests. But if you're looking at the volume of the proposed East Wing, it's more than three times as large as the old East Wing because Trump wanted a very high ceiling for his ballroom. Now, in the original design of Washington, D.C., as it was envisioned by Pierre L'Enfant in the 18th century, Pennsylvania Avenue directly links the center of the White House to the Capitol. There's a sight line between those two. Trump's new East Wing building would not just metaphorically, but literally break the sight line between the White House and the Capitol. That's how big it was. Speaker 2 (6:02) So Speaker 1 (6:03) by any normal measure, this is a major change to the nation's Capitol and to really one of the most iconic and historically important buildings that we have as a nation. So I think we'd expect any major change to the White House, which of course is also known as the People's House, right? Speaker 2 (6:20) To Speaker 1 (6:20) have some public input. Because we're not just talking about changing the wallpaper. Speaker 2 (6:24) Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 (6:25) But just three months after announcing these plans, the Trump administration went ahead and just demolished the East Wing completely. It just took a couple of days. So that was a problem because within days of the demolition, a group called the National Trust filed a lawsuit in federal court trying to stop the ballroom project from proceeding. And the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States is a nonprofit organization chartered by Congress. And the federal law that established the trust says that its very purpose is to facilitate public participation in the preservation of sites, buildings, and objects of national significance or interest. So what kind of claims did they have? So let's start with the legal issues in terms of, you know, the ones that people might be familiar with first and then get to the less familiar ones, right? Okay. Speaker 2 (7:18) So Speaker 1 (7:18) Roman, let's start with the Constitution. Let's start with the Property Clause. Can you read it? Speaker 2 (7:23) The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States, and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States or of any particular state. Speaker 1 (7:41) So, Roman, that property clause of the Constitution makes it very clear that it's Congress and only Congress that has control over all property that belongs to the federal government. There's no ambiguity here. There's no sharing of the property clause powers with the executive branch. It's just Congress's power. If it isn't clear already, the White House is a federal building on federal land. It sits in President's Park, which is a federal park administered by the National Park Service. So Congress originally funded construction of the White House by passing a number of laws authorizing we will have a residence for the president. And since 1800, every president has resided in the White House. And that's important, and maybe it's obvious, but the president is just a steward. He or she is just a caretaker of the White House. The president does not own the White House in any sense at all. OK. Yeah. Speaker 2 (8:35) Then Speaker 1 (8:36) there's the district clause of the Constitution. And maybe you could read that, too. Speaker 2 (8:40) The Congress shall have power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such district not exceeding 10 miles square. as may, by session of particular states and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings. Speaker 1 (9:11) Now, it's called the District Clause, but you'll notice that it has no reference to the District of Columbia. Because at the time, we didn't know where the Capitol was going to be. For sure. The clause gave Congress authority over controlling our seat of government. And eventually, Maryland and Virginia were the two states who ceded or gave away some of their land so that we could have a Capitol. That's the creation of the District of Columbia. Speaker 2 (9:33) So Speaker 1 (9:34) for our ballroom purposes, the district clause simply means that Congress has legislative authority over the District of Columbia. Now, lastly, we have the appropriations clause. Speaker 2 (9:45) No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law, in a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time. Speaker 1 (9:58) So the appropriations clause tells us that the federal government must spend money in ways that Congress specifies. You know, it's kind of the power of the purse, right? So the appropriations clause does two things here. It tells us that Congress, not the president. has the control over dispersing public funds, which, of course, are our taxes. Speaker 2 (10:16) And Speaker 1 (10:17) it exercises that power by passing laws. But it's also a limit on the other branches. The executive branch can't simply spend money without some kind of congressional approval. So overall, you can think of the Appropriations Clause as a way of holding Congress to public account. It tells Congress, OK, you can spend money, but you also have to tell us how you're going to spend money by appropriating it through. a law that's passed, right? So if you put these three things together, the Appropriations Clause, the District Clause, and the Property Clause of the Constitution, it's very clear that it's Congress and only Congress that is in charge of federal property in the District of Columbia. And that includes the White House. Speaker 2 (10:58) So Speaker 1 (10:59) if we just look at the Constitution itself, there is just no basis in the Constitution for... the president, any president, to claim that he can just demolish the East Wing of the White House, which doesn't belong to him at all. And just to be clear, there