High-profile members of the Kennedy family lashed out at the move and now a Democratic lawmaker is suing over the renaming of the Kennedy Center for Donald Trump.
As background, the president stacked the board of the Kennedy Center with friends and associates, talked numerous times about how it should be renamed after himself and acted surprised when they voted to do just that last week. Enter the Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The outcry was loud among non-Trump supporters, and now Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex-officio member of the center’s board, argued that renaming the center would require an act of Congress since the original name was established through legislation that was signed into law.
Beatty is asking a federal judge to declare the center's name as the "John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts" and nullify any vote to change it.
Beatty is represented by Norman Eisen, a White House ethics counsel in the Obama administration, along with Nathaniel Zelinsky, his co-counsel of the Washington Litigation Group.
Eisen said the name change “violates the Constitution and the rule of law because Congress said this is the name. He doesn’t have a right to change the name.” Beatty had a vote on the name as part of the board, but said when it came time to cast their voices, her mic was muted.