White House ballroom cleared for now, but question remains: Can president legally use donations to build it?

Filed 49m ago · Via The Conversation · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Ham 1901 · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A $400 million White House ballroom project, funded partly by private donations, sits in legal limbo after a federal appeals court ruled the administration lacked authority to build it without congressional approval.

The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision on Aug. 31 allowed construction to continue, but only because it found the preservationists challenging the project lacked standing — the majority never addressed whether the underlying spending was legal. Four dissenting justices noted 'an apparent absence of statutory authority' for the project.

The White House's own website states it cannot accept cash donations, and federal law requires that private 'patriotic' gifts to the government go toward reducing the national debt unless Congress explicitly authorizes otherwise. No such authorization exists for the ballroom.

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There is a certain elegance to a legal victory that consists entirely of finding nobody with permission to ask the question. The ballroom will be finished, the donors will be thanked, and the matter of whether any of it was allowed will remain a fascinating hypothetical for future generations of law students. Somewhere in the federal code there is a provision saying patriotic gifts go toward the national debt, and it is presumably being kept in a drawer for safekeeping.

Source: Read the original at The Conversation → Scored: Pixel Peeker Polka - faster · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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