Kennedy Center changed board rules months before vote to add Trump's name

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The new rules say only trustees appointed by the president can vote, barring other members, including Democrats who hold seats, from decisions. The center said the change reflects “longstanding precedent.”

Kennedy Center changed board rules months before vote to add Trump’s name. The cultural center said only trustees appointed by the president could vote, barring other members, including Democrats who hold seats, from decisions. #giftarticle

wapo.st/4bc9F1A

— Flingjore (@flingjore.com) 2026-01-01T22:34:00.317Z

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2025/12/31/kennedy-center-board-trustees-bylaws

The Kennedy Center adopted bylaws earlier this year that limited voting to presidentially appointed trustees, a move that preceded a unanimous decision this month by board members installed by President Donald Trump to add his name to the center.

The current bylaws, obtained by The Washington Post, were revised in May to specify that board members designated by Congress — known as ex officio members — could not vote or count toward a quorum. Legal experts say the move may conflict with the institution’s charter.

Trump took over the Kennedy Center in February, purging its board of members he had not appointed. The months that followed saw struggling ticket sales and programming changes that began to align the arts complex with the Trump administration’s broader cultural aims, culminating with the annual Kennedy Center Honors hosted by the president.

Days later, on Dec. 18, the board voted to add the president’s name to the institution, and within 24 hours it was on the website and the building itself: “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”....

The federal law that established the Kennedy Center designates specific government and federal positions — including the librarian of Congress; the mayor of Washington, D.C.; the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; and the majority and minority leaders of the Senate — to serve as ex officio members.

The law identifies them as part of the board of trustees, which it directs to maintain and administer the facility as a living memorial. But it does not distinguish between voting and nonvoting members, which has been a point of ambiguity in the days following the vote to rename the Kennedy Center......

Beatty, who sued the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees Dec. 22 to stop it from adding Trump’s name to the institution, declined to comment for this story. But her lawsuit argues the center’s statute makes her a “a full voting member.”......

Roger Colinvaux, a law professor at Catholic University, said his read of the statue establishing the center was “not quite as demonstrative” as Beatty’s, but “I’d argue that the statute does not differentiate among types of trustees in terms of powers and obligations, which would include voting.”

Colinvaux added that “basic governance principles” “do not allow for the ‘muting’ of members” of an entity’s governing body, which is a “deliberative body.”

I am a corporate attorney and you cannot change bylaws to make some members non-voting. Beatty's lawsuit will be fun to watch. I will enjoy seeing some corporate law professors getting to testify about corporate law.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. The MaddowBlog-New reporting shows how Team Trump took steps to rename the Kennedy Center

The president’s appointees to the Kennedy Center board tweaked the bylaws so that only their votes would count.

New reporting shows how Team Trump took steps to rename the Kennedy Center - MS NOW

apple.news/A83RHb-Y4Sau...

— (@oc88.bsky.social) 2026-01-02T21:28:42.265Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/new-reporting-shows-how-team-trump-took-steps-to-rename-the-kennedy-center

Two weeks ago, after Donald Trump’s handpicked allies claimed they had renamed The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts to include the incumbent president’s name, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed a curious boast: She insisted that the center’s board, stacked with Trump loyalists, had “voted unanimously” to make the change......

With this in mind, was Leavitt simply lying in her statement? As it turns out, it depends on what one means by “unanimous.” The Washington Post reported:

The Kennedy Center adopted bylaws earlier this year that limited voting to presidentially appointed trustees, a move that preceded a unanimous decision this month by board members installed by President Donald Trump to add his name to the center.

The current bylaws, obtained by The Washington Post, were revised in May to specify that board members designated by Congress — known as ex officio members — could not vote or count toward a quorum. Legal experts say the move may conflict with the institution’s charter[/i].

In other words, after the president seized control over the cultural institution early last year, he chose loyalists to serve on its traditionally bipartisan board. Those board members then decided that their colleagues — the ones who weren’t appointed by Trump — would be powerless when it came time for the board to make decisions......

As the congresswoman’s civil suit proceeds, other lawmakers have taken an interest in the burgeoning controversy, including Democratic Rep. April McClain Delaney of Maryland, who introduced legislation last week to remove Trump’s name.

As for the center’s entertainment lineup, artists continue to cancel their plans to perform at the Kennedy Center as a result of Trump’s gambit. Watch this space.

The Washington post article cited above makes clear that the change of the bylaws violated the corporate charter and this change was void. trump has never had competent corporate counsel and here the change made should not stand up in court.