{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://goodlander.house.gov/media/press-releases/congresswoman-goodlander-joins-the-legal-fight-to-stop-trumps-400-million-ballroom-vanity-project/", "Congresswoman Goodlander Joins the Legal Fight to Stop Trump\u2019s $400 Million Ballroom Vanity Project", "2026-06-02", "2026", "2026-06", "Democrat", "House", "NH", "Maggie Goodlander", "G000604", "goodlander.house.gov", "goodlander", "https://goodlander.house.gov/media/press-releases/", "scraper", "Washington, D.C. \u2014 Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire joined fellow lawmakers in filing a legal brief Thursday in federal court to stop President Trump\u2019s unlawful demolition and reconstruction of the White House East Wing and his proposal to build a massive ballroom in its place \u2014 a project with an estimated price tag of up to $400 million.\n\n\u201cThe White House belongs to the American people \u2014 no President gets to bulldoze it on a whim,\u201d said Congresswoman Goodlander. \u201cThe Constitution is clear: it takes an act of Congress to tear down a federal building. This President skipped that step entirely \u2014 and he\u2019s asking us to believe he can spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a personal vanity project that Congress never authorized and never funded. I will use every tool available, including the courts, to defend our Constitution and our system of checks and balances.\u201d\n\nThe lawmakers filed the legal brief in National Trust for Historic Preservation v. National Park Service, currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Oral arguments are scheduled for June 5 following the district court\u2019s preliminary injunction blocking the project.\n\nThe brief, signed by dozens of Members of Congress, lays out the constitutional case in stark terms. The Constitution clearly establishes \u201cCongress\u2019s primacy over federal property, spending, and the District of Columbia\u201d \u2014 and therefore over any decision to demolish or reconstruct the White House. The brief notes that the White House \u201cwas built only after Congress passed legislation authorizing its construction and appropriating funds to cover that expense\u201d and has been maintained that way for more than two centuries.\n\n\u201cAppellants have no authority to demolish the White House\u2019s East Wing and to build a massive ballroom in its stead,\u201d the brief reads. Congress, the lawmakers argue, \u201cneither authorized nor appropriated funds for the President to demolish the East Wing\u201d \u2014 and the statutes the administration cites to defend its actions cover only \u201cmaintenance and upkeep of extant White House property,\u201d not the demolition of an entire wing.\n\nThe brief also exposes a glaring fiscal reality: the entire amount Congress actually appropriated for White House maintenance \u2014 even if devoted solely to this project \u2014 would cover less than one percent of the ballroom\u2019s estimated $400 million cost. As the brief puts it, \u201cMaintaining a building is flatly incompatible with demolishing it.\u201d\n\nThe brief squarely rejects the Trump administration\u2019s argument that Congress can only intervene after the fact if a White House renovation \u201cgoes too far.\u201d That approach, the lawmakers write, is \u201cprecisely backward\u201d: the constitutional default is not unlimited executive authority. As the Supreme Court established in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the President\u2019s power is at its \u201clowest ebb\u201d when he acts against the will of Congress.\n\n###", 1, "2026-06-03T06:40:39Z", "2026-06-03T06:42:22Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://goodlander.house.gov/media/press-releases/congresswoman-goodlander-joins-the-legal-fight-to-stop-trumps-400-million-ballroom-vanity-project/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.2956899590790272, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}