r/politics • u/theindependentonline The Independent • 1d ago

No Paywall Trump’s ballroom construction ‘likely unlawful,’ John Roberts says, but Supreme Court will allow it anyway

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-ballroom-construction-unlawful-john-roberts-b3042329.html
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u/BigMax 1d ago

For those that didn't read it, this was basically thrown out on a technicality.

Three liberals and Roberts all said "this is illegal, it should be stopped."

Five of them almost certainly agreed that it's not legal! So they said "uh... the person suing to stop this... doesn't have the right to sue. So... this is illegal, but... no one can stop it."

It's wild that Trump can literally break the law and there's literally no way to stop him, even when the Supreme Court itself says what he's doing is illegal.

Wild.

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u/xXxKittenx 1d ago

I mean that explanation just hurts my brain. It's the people's White House. I feel like any tax paying citizen has a right to sue. Like if what he's doing can't be suable, but it's illegal shouldn't he be arrested or be facing some kind of criminal charges. Nobody can bring that up?

To me, if that was their response, that opens a bigger legal discussion than what the Supreme Court just offered. With the shadow docket bullshit They don't need to really like write these long, big pieces anymore on how they came to the decision. They're just your regular desk jockey judges, the judges that are supposed to rule and if you find it unacceptable, it's for greater review at the HIGHEST court and taken considerably seriously. Hearing from the judges that ruled it unconstitutional that he's doing this.

Remember when a case that was important enough to make it to the Supreme Court and they treated it like it was important and not a rush to judgment. Now we really don't even get any information from the White House, so fucking transparency, my ass. I feel like the Supreme Court should consider the big thing that apparently nobody can sue something that's illegal, but what other measurements must be taken to stop unlawful behavior. Even the message they're sending is horrible.

But I bet if someone graffiti on the White House, they would be facing the upmost charges for desiccating it. Probably face something like even years in jail.

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u/Darx117 23h ago

The misconception is twofold: 1) they didn’t rule on the legality of the construction, only on procedural grounds (this is different than the actual merits of the case) and 2) as a court of appeal, they do not have jurisdiction to convict or ‘punish’ someone. They can’t take/ hear evidence, this is reserved for a trial court. The Supreme Court only reviews legal decisions not evidentiary matters. This is why, even if they opined that they think it’s illegal, it’s purely dicta and not binding—which a trial court can use as a very persuasive reason to impose an injunction or a prosecutor if charges were indicted by a Grand Jury.

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u/pilgermann 23h ago

Right, and the comment before yours is wondering why literally any American citizen doesn't have standing on procedural grounds. Or conversely, who would have standing.

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u/Darx117 23h ago

Because the White House belongs to the U.S. government, despite being maintained by taxpayer money. There’s a reason why you can’t just waltz into the White House despite being “the people’s house”. It just happens to be occupied by a terrible person who was democratically elected.

Paying taxes doesn’t entitle the citizenry to have ownership (or say) over government property. It’s a Constitutional function of Congress to take taxes and appropriate that money as it sees fit. Whether they are doing that correctly or not, is another discussion entirely. The immediate solution to this chaos? Go out and vote in November, and then again in 2028.

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u/SnooPuppers8698 21h ago

voting is NOT the only immediate solution

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u/ElliotNess Florida 20h ago

It isn't a solution at all. There is not one person whom we could vote in that could fix this mess. Because the person voted in would have to follow the system to fix the system, and there is no road within the system that leads to a solution. Everything wrong with the system has already been systematized.

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u/Olin_123 12h ago

The immediate solution can't be stated online because the ruling class is terrified of the masses all realizing there are other avenues for change. Luigi isn't getting a show trial by coincidence.

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u/Darx117 21h ago

You are right, let me clarify: the only realistic* solution.

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u/BravestWabbit 20h ago

You still didnt answer who can stop the Executive from destroying government property.

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u/Delicious_Randomly Illinois 17h ago edited 16h ago

I think the only group with proper standing to sue in this case under this decision would be a specific part of the executive branch that Trump's plan should have gone through first, as he had the project start immediately and skipped the standard processes. So the offices who would normally have been part of the process of planning, approving, and executing a White House renovation would theoretically have had standing, but they all rolled over with at most a token objection when this started.

Congress can impeach the executive to stop this, in theory. Not that they will any time soon.

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u/pwmaloney Illinois 5h ago

Congress, no? But we know coward Rs won't do it.

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u/Darx117 20h ago

Somebody other than the plaintiff that sued, I haven’t looked into it. You can look into it though!

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u/paintbucketholder Kansas 13h ago

Paying taxes doesn’t entitle the citizenry to have ownership (or say) over government property.

It's not a question about ownership of government property, though.

The question is: why can the Executive branch just break laws left and right, and nobody in the entire United States of America has the right to say "look, I think they broke the law, and I want a court to look at this and put an end to the lawbreaking behavior if it's being determined that the law is being broken" without having to meet further requirements?

Why is the default that lawbreaking behavior by the Executive branch is allowed? Shouldn't the default simply be that the Executive branch isn't allowed to break any laws, and if it's been determined in a court of law that the Executive branch has been breaking laws, that that behavior is being stopped immediately?

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u/SnooPuppers8698 13h ago

Americans dont care enough to do anything about it

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u/Darx117 8h ago

Yeah sure, that all makes practical sense but our judicial system just doesn’t work that way. This isn’t something unique to the Executive Branch. If you file a complaint against someone alleging breach of contract on some constitutional grounds (let’s say someone doesn’t want to fulfill their obligations because they don’t like the color of your skin) and this get appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, they are just going to examine this one issue. You can’t allege that this person also stole money when he visited your house for instance. Even if you don’t allege it but it might be evident in the complaint. Assume that as part of your evidence to show breach of contract, you demonstrate that this person has done the same race-based breach before (but the other companies never sued), likewise, the Supreme Court isn’t there to check if this person also wronged the other companies, even if they acknowledge that it might be grounds for a lawsuit, they are only there to examine your issue.

This also applies to the procedural issues, they (and any other court) will ensure that all of the procedural issues are resolved before ever looking at the substantive law. That said, the Supreme Court is REALLY good at spotting these issues, and sometimes, if they can get off the hook for a controversial issue, when they spot a procedural problem, they kick the can down the road. Again, this isn’t unique to them, think of any famous murder you’ve heard about; you wouldn’t want a mistrial because of some procedural hiccup. Better to get things squared away before looking at the merits.

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u/Dr-E-Dacted 22h ago

> was democratically elected

gonna need a source on that. In the meantime, the system works! Just keep abiding by its technicalities and I'm sure it will sort itself out (ignore Gödel on this).

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u/strangerbuttrue Colorado 7h ago

If I’m understanding your explanation correctly, and the US govt owns the property, AND the SC is saying the action is unlawful, who exactly has standing to assert the law? Congress?

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u/Darx117 7h ago

I’m not exactly sure, I haven’t looked into who has standing. That said, the Supreme Court has not ruled that it is unlawful. The ruling was on the standing grounds. Some Justices opined that it was likely unlawful but that isn’t binding. And without getting through the procedural hurdle (standing), they can’t really rule or formulate a full opinion on the merits of the case or (the unlawful of the construction).

Hope this helps.

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u/strangerbuttrue Colorado 7h ago

Yup, I understood the non binding, and I understand they aren’t the enforcers, just the appealers. Just wondering the original question then- who can actually do anything to stop unlawful behavior like this (assuming their opinion is correct and perhaps they are stating it as a signaling to whomever should be bringing the case that does have standing). Wondering who, if anyone, is supposed to look up into the sky and see the Bat Signal.

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u/Darx117 6h ago

Ideally? To fix the problem immediately? Probably Congress. Congress would have the power to stop this but because of lack of political will, indifference, or not enough votes, they haven’t done anything. In a legal sense? I’m not sure who would have standing here. There might not be anyone since appropriation of funds (power of the purse) lies with Congress. That is also muddled since supposedly the ballroom is being built with private donations.

The simple explanation and solution would be for Congress to launch an investigation into the ballroom per their oversight powers, and then, potentially cancel the project.

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u/Charming-Fig-2544 17h ago

Lawyer here. This is a common question, with a relatively simple explanation once we understand standing.

The doctrine of standing is rooted in Article III's requirement that federal courts only hear actual "cases or controversies," not speculative or sham cases, and not issuing advisory opinions.

Out of this requirement, the Court has formulated a test for standing that it believes sorts for cases that fulfill the requirement for a "case or controversy."

That test has 3 main elements: 1) The plaintiff must suffer an actual or imminent injury that is concrete and particularized; 2) that injury must be fairly traceable to the defendant; and 3) the injury must be redressable by the court. To put it colloquially, the plaintiff has to be uniquely fucked, the defendant must have fucked the plaintiff, and the court must have the ability to un-fuck things.

You'll notice that element 1 has some sub-elements, the final one being that the injury is particularized. This is the key to answering your question. The Court has held that an injury that is suffered by EVERYONE, or nearly everyone, is not a particularized injury that gives rise to Article III standing. The reasoning is that such an injury is really a criticism of the legislative or executive branches, and the solution is best found by voting in different politicians who will fix that problem, rather than having the court fix it. Another reason is that permitting EVERYONE to sue would overwhelm the courts with litigation every time there was a legislative or policy change, and there would likely be conflicting rulings in different parts of the country, which would leave the legal status of the law or policy at issue in limbo.

A common example is taxing and spending. A particular individual, or even many of them, may take umbrage with how the government collects taxes and spends the money. But for over 100 years, the Court has held that they have no standing to challenge such things, and their redress must be found in the legislative process.

A more recent example are the challenges brought by Trump and his cronies in the wake of the 2020 election. Courts across the country held that the challenges actually failed to meet any of the three elements of standing -- they alleged an injury that was suffered by all and thus best solved by legislative changes to the elections process, they sued the wrong people who couldn't fairly be said to have caused the injury, and the remedies they were asking for (re-doing the election, tossing out ballots, etc.) were not things the courts had legal power to order so their injury couldn't be solved by the courts.

Here, yes, I agree that it's an affront to all Americans that the president can ruin our buildings and misuse our funds. But under Article III and the current test for standing, the solution is to not vote dumb fucks into office.

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u/Key_nine 21h ago

You can't sue the military because of the Feres Doctrine.

You can't sue the civilian government unless injury, property damage or death occurs because of the Federal Tort Claims Act.

So no one can just sue the government to stop it, it has to be someone's property or yourself that the civilian government harms directly. Taxpayer money is indirectly.

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u/oliversurpless Massachusetts 23h ago edited 23h ago

Proceduralism is a long stain on this country, as per?

https://www.bunkhistory.org/resources/the-caging-of-america

“The trouble with the Bill of Rights, he argues, is that it emphasizes process and procedure rather than principles. The Declaration of the Rights of Man says, Be just! The Bill of Rights says, Be fair! Instead of announcing general principles—no one should be accused of something that wasn’t a crime when he did it; cruel punishments are always wrong; the goal of justice is, above all, that justice be done—it talks procedurally.”

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u/Darx117 23h ago

Not necessarily. Those same procedural rights are what prevent cruel and unusual punishment, unlawful searches and seizures, protects your 5th Amendment rights, your right to counsel, and to be judged by a jury of your peers. We have so much process so that the actual substantive law is administered as fairly as possible. Sometimes, a lawsuit gets things thrown out on ‘technicalities’ but we can’t root for these things only when it protects our interests, otherwise it wouldn’t be a fair administration of justice.

And I want to make clear, our legal system is not perfect, it is an ever evolving system that we always strive to perfect. But these protections are far more helpful than they are detrimental.

I also can’t read the article since it’s blocked.

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u/Big_Department4209 Europe 13h ago

Solitary confinement for months on end is cruel and unusual punishment, still done under those procedural rights. Unlawful searches and seizures happen quite often in the USA compared to other developed societies.

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u/oliversurpless Massachusetts 22h ago

Yep, I was mostly just looking for the quote in question from reading it years ago, so I’ll have to see what I can find later today?

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u/Darx117 21h ago

If you have the time, thank you my fellow Masshole!

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u/oliversurpless Massachusetts 21h ago

Here we are!

https://www.scribd.com/document/392629851/the-caging-of-america

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u/Darx117 20h ago

I will get to this at some point in between my legal studies. Thanks!

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u/PrometheusLiberatus 21h ago

If the supreme court chief justice thinks it's illegal he should be using his influence among his peers to insure that's the interpretation. That he didn't shows how weak he is.

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u/Darx117 19h ago

Not just because it’s Justice Roberts, who I don’t agree with on many legal rulings; I don’t think ANY judge should be using his/her influence to manipulate any decisions. That creates distrust and serious issues for any legal system. He isn’t Chief Justice because he’s smarter/ more capable than the rest, he’s just the most senior. Other than some administrative roles, his power is no greater than the other 8 justices.

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u/PrometheusLiberatus 19h ago

We already don't trust the son of a bitch because gestures vaguely at everything from the past 21 years of rulings.

The least he could do is try to put forth more of an effort to turn the other conservatives WHEN he's deciding to rule with the 3 liberal justices

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u/xXxKittenx 23h ago

Yeah, actually, thank you that distinction is super helpful! Further reading into it, the Supreme Court didn't actually rule on the legality of the construction and the court can't punish or convict someone. So thank ya for the correction.

It's just the broader concerned that I think is still relevant. They didn't focus on the merits, they focused on the standing and that's the frustrating part. He's allowed to continue construction when multiple federal judges have already concluded that the executive likely lacks legal authority to do this without Congress. Even four Supreme Court justices said the construction is likely unlawful.

If the lower courts already determined that this is like Trump acting outside of a lawful authority, but the supreme Court lets the action continue 🤯, hurts my brain, because the right person isn't suing.

I think it's fair to question who can actually stop it, which they weren't exactly clear about

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u/Darx117 23h ago

I’m not sure who would have standing, I haven’t looked into this. But this is synonymous with your friend suing on your behalf for a car someone stole from you. She wouldn’t have standing because she doesn’t own the car, and thus she suffered no injury. A judge would probably agree that a harm has occurred, just not to the person who filed a complaint. So to recap: someone with standing would refile this suit, and it might get a preliminary injunction while the case proceeds at trial.

Edit: as to your last point, it’s not up to the Supreme Court (or any court) to determine who has standing—hence why it is ambiguous. It is up to the attorneys submitting the complaint.

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u/xXxKittenx 22h ago

I get the Supreme Court's job isn't to identify who is a suitable plaintiff. I mean, many of the other judges that is went through found the plaintiff suitable, but I'll respect what the 5 members of the Supreme Court found.

What bothers me is what happens when you combine that with everything else in this case. The courts that actually reached the legality of the conduct concluded that it was likely unlawful, and four Supreme Court justices agreed. The five remaining didn't rule that those judges were wrong or that the president actually had the legal authority to do this.

I’m saying that when standing ruling produces a situation where a potentially unlawful exercise of executive power can be completed before anyone deemed “proper” gets a merits ruling, I think it’s completely reasonable to question whether the judicial system is providing an effective remedy at all.

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u/Darx117 21h ago

It’s a fair question but the Constitution prevents it. Article III of the Constitution grants very limited original jurisdiction and appellate review to the Supreme Court. Congress can expand their jurisdiction, but they have in certain circumstances, but it remains very limited. It’s not so much a judicial issue, it’s quite literally against the Constitution to do so and the lack of desire from Congress to expand their judicial powers. Both things which can (ideally) be improved by voting.

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u/Dismal_Buy3580 13h ago

Article III of the Constitution grants very limited original jurisdiction and appellate review to the Supreme Court.

Congress doesn't have to expand shit. 

Judicial review is a power the court gave itself.

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u/hypercosm_dot_net 20h ago

From what I understand that is similar to why he was still able to get on the ballot in spite of being a seditionist.

The SC said it was the House that needed to disqualify a candidate, when multiple states attempted to. Republicans controlled the House in '24, and here we are.

https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-news/details/supreme-court-rules-trump-can-stay-on-colorado-ballot

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson also wrote a joint concurring opinion agreeing only with the judgment that allowing Colorado to remove a presidential candidate from the ballot would “create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles.”

Although the liberal justices agreed, I don't see this as reasonable justification. Though I'm not a lawyer.

It just seems fucked, that the law isn't automatically enforced, but requires some special application of power to apply.

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u/Affectionate-Heat-51 23h ago

It's a failure of Congress to check him. They are supposed to represent US and represent our interest in the people's house. I don't think under the case law there's anyone else with standing (a close enough interest in the alleged harm). It essentially becomes a political question. We have to vote.

Trump people are corrupt and act in bad faith.. The aren't all stupid though - they are exploiting these weaknesses in the system

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u/aravarth 1d ago

>dessicating it

*desecrating it. To dessicate something is to remove all moisture from it, like in a food dehydrator or through the process of mummification.

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u/xXxKittenx 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah, I know I noticed when I reread it, I was like I put dissecting instead of desecrating but I was doing type to text. I press send sometimes before proofreading. 😅

Edit: I put dissecting instead of desiccating lol. I didn't even know the word the talk to text changed it to lmfao. So actually thank you for the definition. I don't know when I'll ever use that word but it's a good way to expand my vocabulary lmfao 🫶

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u/PokemonTrainerMikey 1d ago

How often are you texting the words "Lou Albano"?

“four to five times a week”

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u/xXxKittenx 1d ago

😭🤣

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u/shoplifterfpd America 23h ago

WILL YOU STOP

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u/oliversurpless Massachusetts 23h ago

“Do the Mario!”

https://youtu.be/65uNCLBTje0?is=9cvuJn8xeISg7ld8

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u/aravarth 23h ago

Swing your hips, from side to side!

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u/oliversurpless Massachusetts 23h ago

Or with more whimsy, why the average zombie apocalypse would fail within days.

Any arid region, and their legs would fall apart…

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u/sully213 Pennsylvania 23h ago

I mean they did remove the water pipes from the east wing. But you could also make an argument for defecation because that place now looks like shit!

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u/deepsead1ver 23h ago

Because congress holds the power of impeachment and the repubs aren’t going to go for that

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u/SnooPuppers8698 21h ago

lucky you even get an explanation from this court

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u/cytherian New Jersey 21h ago

The procedural aspect show be sidelined due to the fact that the ballroom construction is not authorized & not legal. This court is bouncing like a kangaroo.

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u/stamfordbridge1191 19h ago

"The court recognizes that the order for the deaths of millions seems very illegal. But the suing party doesn't really have a right to sue to stop it, so there really isn't anything that can be done to prevent it."

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u/Charming-Fig-2544 17h ago

Lawyer here. You're essentially asking why can't anybody sue. This is a common and good question, with a relatively simple explanation once we understand standing.

The doctrine of standing is rooted in Article III's requirement that federal courts only hear actual "cases or controversies," not speculative or sham cases, and not issuing advisory opinions. This is a fundamental jurisdictional limit on the judiciary set by the Constitution. Some may call standing a "technicality," but it's not. It's a basic rule that has existed for centuries.

Out of this requirement, the Court has formulated a test for standing that it believes sorts for cases that fulfill the requirement for a "case or controversy."

That test has 3 main elements: 1) The plaintiff must suffer an actual or imminent injury that is concrete and particularized; 2) that injury must be fairly traceable to the defendant; and 3) the injury must be redressable by the court. To put it colloquially, the plaintiff has to be uniquely fucked, the defendant must have fucked the plaintiff, and the court must have the ability to un-fuck things.

You'll notice that element 1 has some sub-elements, the final one being that the injury is particularized. This is the key to answering your question. The Court has held that an injury that is suffered by EVERYONE, or nearly everyone, is not a particularized injury that gives rise to Article III standing. The reasoning is that such an injury is really a criticism of the legislative or executive branches, and the solution is best found by voting in different politicians who will fix that problem, rather than having the court fix it. Another reason is that permitting EVERYONE to sue would overwhelm the courts with litigation every time there was a legislative or policy change, and there would likely be conflicting rulings in different parts of the country, which would leave the legal status of the law or policy at issue in limbo.

A common example is taxing and spending. A particular individual, or even many of them, may take umbrage with how the government collects taxes and spends the money. But for over 100 years, the Court has held that they have no standing to challenge such things, and their redress must be found in the legislative process.

A more recent example are the challenges brought by Trump and his cronies in the wake of the 2020 election. Courts across the country held that the challenges actually failed to meet any of the three elements of standing -- they alleged an injury that was suffered by all and thus best solved by legislative changes to the elections process, they sued the wrong people who couldn't fairly be said to have caused the injury, and the remedies they were asking for (re-doing the election, tossing out ballots, etc.) were not things the courts had legal power to order so their injury couldn't be solved by the courts.

Here, yes, I agree that it's an affront to all Americans that the president can ruin our buildings and misuse our funds. But under Article III and the current test for standing, the solution is to not vote dumb fucks into office.

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u/Polantaris Illinois 9h ago

So how do you justify this ruling in contrast to the fake wedding website one where the plantiff had literally zero standing and the Supreme Court decided to rule anyway?

How do you see these two distinct rulings and say that there's no agenda, no bias, no political shenanigans going on here?

The rule of law has been corrupted to fit the narrative of the day with no other objective.

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u/Charming-Fig-2544 9h ago

I think the wedding website case was wrongly decided, likely intentionally. I'm just explaining the doctrine and pointing out that this ruling fits squarely within it. The question above was why can't anyone sue, and the answer is that, for over 100 years, that's been the rule based on this three-part test.

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u/fordat1 13h ago

Its the same logic used on violating rights in mass surveilance so it isnt new