According to CNN.com, President Donald Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board of trustees voted earlier today to close the performing arts institution for two years for renovations. The vote, which the arts center said in a press release, was unanimous. Trump announced the planned closure earlier this year and Monday’s stamp of approval from the board was widely expected and is just the latest effort to impose the president’s style and cultural tastes in the nation’s capital.
“It’s a little late for the board because we’ve already announced it,” Trump as the meeting was convening. “These are minor details, but I think everybody agrees,” he said, adding that new seating and marble for the renovation has already been purchased. Ex-officio members of the board, whose position is mandated by Congress, were permitted to attend the meeting at the White House but were not allowed to vote.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat who serves as an ex-officio member because he is ranking member of a committee that oversees the arts center, declined to attend, saying in a statement that he refused to “serve as a prop” at the meeting, which he described as a “sham.” Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex-officio members who’s filed a lawsuit against Trump and the board, said she expressed “strong opposition” during the meeting to any closure in the absence of congressional approval.
Part of Beatty’s legal complaint was about Monday’s meeting specifically ensuring that she and other ex-officio members would receive documents about the renovation plans beforehand and that she would be allowed to participate and vote. A federal judge ruled Saturday requiring the Trump administration to turn over relevant documents but he did not weigh in on whether Beatty could vote. Beatty had called the documents “inadequate” in a statement on Sunday.
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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