A Democratic Party representative has waded in to prevent major remodeling action at the Kennedy Center, challenging President Donald Trump's administration on the laws around the building.
Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) has asked a federal judge to outline the specifics of what can and cannot be changed in the two-year remodeling plan. A motion filed Wednesday challenged the purpose of the shutdown, which is set to begin later this year as the Trump administration makes a series of sweeping changes to the interior and exterior of the building.
Beatty's lawyers, Norm Eisen and Nathaniel Zelinsky, wrote to the federal judge arguing that plans for the Kennedy Center remodeling must be made clear, The Hill reported.
"There is no clearer or more significant breach of fiduciary duty than the Board flouting the central purpose of the institution it is charged with protecting and which Congress enshrined into law: to maintain the Center as a memorial to John F. Kennedy — and to no one else," Beatty wrote.
Beatty has previously taken action against the Trump administration on the Kennedy Center, suing the board of the arts venue. A newly filed motion against the Kennedy Center board uses the wording of the statute that established the Kennedy Center as grounds to investigate what the Trump team has planned for the building.
The 1964 legislation for the building reads, "The Board shall construct…a building to be designated as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts." Eisen and Zelinsky argue the "designated" detail means Kennedy's name alone should be featured.
The pair also argued that "no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed" at the center's public areas, unless fitting into one of three exceptions.
If the memorial is acknowledging a gift from a foreign nation, a plaque on a theater chair or box acknowledging a gift, or any inscription inside the center, it can be validated.
"None of these narrow exceptions permit the trustees to add President Trump’s name to the Center’s façade — above President Kennedy’s name — and to rebrand the Center as the ‘Trump Kennedy Center," Eisen and Zelinsky added.