By Nathaniel "Beltway" Steele
The bulldozers can keep moving. For now.
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that construction on a new White House ballroom may continue while litigation over the project plays out. Chief Justice John Roberts paused a lower court order that had set a midnight deadline for halting above-ground work, according to NBC News.
The order is temporary. It does not resolve the underlying legal dispute over the project, which has drawn objections over its scope and the process used to approve it. What it does is let workers keep building while the courts sort out the rest.
The White House has treated the ballroom as a marquee addition to the residence. Critics have treated it as a test case for how much a president can alter the historic complex without full review. Friday's order does not answer that question. It simply keeps the cranes running until someone does.
Watch for the next filing. A temporary stay from the Chief Justice is not a ruling on the merits — it's a pause button. The case underlying it remains alive, and the same disputes over authority and process will need to be argued through to a final decision.
— Read the footnotes. The story's always in the footnotes.
— Compiled from reporting by NBC News and CBS News.
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