Opponents of President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery are betting on a simple strategy – stall the project long enough for Democrats to take control of Congress.
The 80-year-old president is ready to start building the monument as soon as a federal court lifts its order pausing work, but the Washington Post reported that a coalition of local leaders, lawmakers and retired D.C. residents is trying to keep construction from starting before Jan. 3, when the new Congress is seated.
“We’re hoping we can just delay this to Jan. 3, when the new Congress is seated and it will be harder and harder for Trump,” said Joanne Vine, a retired D.C. resident who helped organize a local group dubbed the “anti-archers.”
Vine said she has been working with Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA), who is expected to chair the House Natural Resources Committee next year, and she said she’s optimistic that he and his colleagues will put new obstacles in the arch’s path.
Opponents won a key victory last Thursday. Minutes after a federal planning commission packed with Trump appointees approved the arch, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered a halt to all arch-related work. She sided with a lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia and Virginia, writing that both “face tangible economic harms from the construction of the Arch.” Her final ruling could come later this month.
Vine said her group coordinates over the encrypted messaging app Signal and had been ready to physically block construction crews if the judge hadn’t stepped in.
“If Chutkan hadn’t ruled, we were prepared to go [to] the circle,” she said. “About 20 or 30 of us were prepared to be arrested.”
Opposition is also building at City Hall. In a statement to the Post, Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George said “the people of D.C. do not support this 250-foot arch.” She warned it could disrupt traffic and emergency evacuation routes and harm the “sacred” cemetery itself. Outgoing Mayor Muriel Bowser, by contrast, has stayed largely silent on the project and did not join the lawsuit.
Separately, nine members of the Kennedy family filed their own suit Tuesday. They cited a Post analysis that found the arch would cast shadows on John F. Kennedy’s grave.
The White House waved off Chutkan’s order as the work of an “activist district court.”
“We are confident we will be fully vindicated as this litigation proceeds and look forward to seeing the completion of this magnificent Arch,” spokesman Davis Ingle said.
The administration shows no sign of backing down. The day after Chutkan’s ruling, the White House promoted new renderings of the arch. They show it emblazoned with “Golden Age of America,” one of Trump’s favorite slogans, in place of the previously approved “Liberty and Justice for All.”
According to the Post, administration officials sometimes call the project “the Trump arch.”