Commentary: How Nevada can help stop stop L’Arc de Trump before it rises

On Thursday, the stacked National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), where Trump appointees, agency heads and Republican members of Congress hold 8 of 12 seats, met to vote on L’Arc de Trump. Surprising no one, it passed. 

Hours later, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, in whose courtroom the suits against the arch by veterans and Public Citizen as well as Virginia and the District of Columbia have merged, issued an order prohibiting any construction for 14 days.

Fiery testimony in opposition from civic organizers, architects and residents lasted hours during the hearing, including dead time when the stream crashed and had to be moved to the NCPC YouTube channel. A disgusted Rep. Jared Huffman told the commissioners in support of the arch, “You can try that argument in court. I don’t think it’s going to fly. … You’re going to lose. You’re going to lose. … This is an illegal project.” It had no effect. In a scene worthy of Kafka, the commission approved the arch with military plans it was not allowed to see.

While legal battling over the arch continues, we should not resign ourselves to a rogue, voluminous mass on Memorial Circle that would wedge itself in the sightline between Lincoln’s memorial and the Union dead he mourned buried at Arlington. In May, Nevada’s own Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, with Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia, introduced the Arlington National Cemetery Viewshed Protection Act (H.R. 9047). In three short provisions, it would bar any plans to build this arch. It would also permanently cut off federal funding for the project and require Congress to approve any arch taller than 50 feet anywhere on capital-region parkland.

That last provision is the arch killer. The 1986 Commemorative Works Act gives Congress, not the president, the final say over memorials in the capital. But the administration argued that a plan authorized 101 years ago for two never-built 166-foot columns at Memorial Circle somehow stretches to a 250-foot arch, which per Trump would now be a “top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch” with drones and snipers. That enhancement appears nowhere in the submitted plans and the Park Service denies knowledge of such transformer-like capabilities. Titus’ H.R. 9047 still sits unheard in committee with 46 co-sponsors and not one Republican.

Bills die when a Congress ends, so in January, with Democratic majorities in both chambers, Titus and Beyer should reintroduce H.R. 9047 on the first day. That same month, the two congressional seats on the NCPC will pass to the new Democratic committee chairs, and its split will become 6 to 6. Rep.-elect Teresa Benitez-Thompson should commit now to co-sponsoring. Sens. Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto should immediately introduce an identical bill in the Senate. The president can veto it, and I don’t expect 13 Republicans to break ranks for an override. That’s why I think this should be Plan B. I have a Plan A.

Congress’ strongest check is money. Titus and Rep. Chellie Pingree wrote to the president that spending on “a project that has no legal basis to proceed is an abuse of taxpayer dollars.” Taxpayers are already expected to foot the bill. The White House’s spending plan for the National Endowment for the Humanities set aside $15 million for the arch: $2 million directly and $13 million in matching grants. Chutkan said in court that she still didn’t know where the rest of the money was supposed to come from.

But Titus’ leverage actually starts in December, not January. Funding for permits, work crews and grants comes from congressional appropriations. Under the current stopgap bill, the government runs out of money Dec. 11, three weeks before the new Congress is sworn in. Sixty Senate votes would be needed to avert another painful shutdown. Democrats should block any essential spending bill unless it includes a single-sentence rider barring the National Park Service, the Interior Department and the National Endowment for the Humanities from any arch spending. Trump would have to sign the bill or trigger a shutdown over what most voters see as a vainglorious monument to himself. Republican senators up for reelection in 2028 would need to choose whether to vote with Democrats or align themselves with a decidedly unpopular president and another contentious decoration project while voters struggle with bills. Who knows? Disowned by Washoe County Republicans for refusing to back the scandal-plagued Flippo, Rep. Mark Amodei, who sits until Jan. 3 on the Appropriations subcommittee that funds Interior, might come along.

To be sure, Democrats could wait for their new majorities in January. But depending on when the construction begins, a spring bill would hit a project already months underway. With work planned 20 hours a day, a spring rider would come too late to stop the expense and the disruption in the corridor, and taxpayers would pay again to restore the site. In August, the Supreme Court let Trump keep building his ballroom while its legality is still in court. Trump’s “Build first; let the courts catch up” maneuver has already worked. We must try to stop him this time. Every month it rises, the specious argument for completion hardens like concrete.

Despite and even because of this week’s decisive rebuke of Trump and the Republican Party, I remain deeply anxious about Trump’s compulsive willingness to destroy anything to avoid being branded a loser. Thus, I also have a Plan C. In January, the House should hold hearings and subpoena the funding and approval records and refer any illegal spending to the Government Accountability Office. The House can also make warranted criminal referrals to the Justice Department, which, even if Trump’s attorneys ignore them, would, barring pardons, set up the case for a later prosecutor. Most federal crimes can be charged up to five years later.

In Trump’s closing speech before the midterms vote, he expounded on his renovation of the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool. On Nov. 4, the day after voters repudiated his agenda, he spoke to reporters inside his unfinished ballroom, calling it “one of the biggest” and “the most beautiful ballroom I think anywhere in the world,” and hailed his new nearby helipad as “a thing of beauty.” This arch, which he markets as a symbolic commemoration of the 250th anniversary of our Union, is transparently not about America at all. It is a triumphal arch for one 80-year-old modern-day Ozymandias, a self-styled “great” president desperate to shape how he’s remembered. Like his signature properties, whatever stands at the end of that bridge must be enormous, gilded and recognizably Trumpian. Our representatives must not let it rise.