Donald Trump’s plan for a towering arch on the edge of Washington cleared its last planning hurdle on Thursday and then ran straight into a courtroom. Within about an hour of the vote, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a 14-day temporary restraining order that bars the administration from starting construction, excavation or any related work on the 250-foot monument.
The National Capital Planning Commission had approved the final site plans 8-4 after a marathon session of more than nine hours, during which roughly a hundred speakers, Democratic lawmakers among them, urged it to say no. Every no vote came from a commissioner whom Trump had not picked.
Suing to stop it are the capital’s own local government and neighbouring Virginia. The planned site is Memorial Circle, a roundabout on the axis running from the Lincoln Memorial toward Arlington National Cemetery, and opponents say it would block views of the cemetery and snarl traffic while raising safety and environmental worries.
The government argues that Congress already authorised an arch more than a century ago, in the same law that cleared a bridge over the Potomac. Chutkan was unconvinced, writing of the “sheer improbability” that such an old statute held a power no earlier administration had noticed. She also found the plaintiffs faced real harm, since the work was expected to last around three years.
A White House spokesman blasted what he called an “activist district court”. In the president’s telling, the monument would mark America turning 250. With several other lawsuits pending, no one can yet say when, or whether, ground will be broken.
