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Yesterday was one of the most important days in American legal history! Federal judge Richard Leon ordered the Trump administration to stop construction of a new White House ballroom on the grounds of the somewhat recently torn down East Wing. And he did so by using a lot of exclamation points! In fact, he used 18 of them in a 35-page opinion. That\u2019s a lot!<\/p>\n
If we believe his Wikipedia page picture, Leon, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court in D.C. nearly 25 years ago by George W. Bush, actually looks like Seinfeld<\/em>\u2018s George Costanza in disguise. He previously worked as a hand model, for the New York Yankees, as an architect, and in an unknown capacity at Vandelay Industries. He also loves using exclamation points in his opinions! Four times, he refuted White House arguments by saying \u201cPlease!\u201d As in, \u201caccording to Defendants, any construction delay will undermine national security. Please!\u201d At least he didn\u2019t say, \u201cb*tch, please!\u201d but it\u2019s implied.<\/p>\n Here are some other examples of the exclamatory function in Leon\u2019s judicial prose: \u201cthe existence of a \u2018large hole\u2019 beside the White House is, of course, a problem of the President\u2019s own making!\u201d; \u201c<\/span>This clearly is not how Congress and former Presidents have managed the White House for centuries, and this Court will not be the first to hold that Congress has ceded its powers in such a significant fashion!\u201d; and \u201cAfter all, the White House does not belong to any one man, not even a president!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a large percentage of the establishment, buttressed by Boomers and permanently terrified Gen-Xers on social media, who act like Trump\u2019s attempts to build a grand ballroom at the White House are akin to him tearing out the Rose Garden to make way for a crematorium for illegal immigrants. The only thing that makes them madder is the Melania documentary. Leon, clearly, is the judge they want! This is the \u201cPeople\u2019s House,\u201d they argue, even though most people don\u2019t live there and will never go there. The renovation is privately funded and, in the end, will harm absolutely no one. But the real headline here is that a major judge has used exclamation points in a significant ruling like he\u2019s a middle-schooler writing a mash note.<\/p>\n Imagine John Marshall using exclamation points, or Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., or Thurgood Marshall. During their long and unlikely friendship, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia never used exclamations in their judicial writings. William Howard Taft never used them. Also, he never got stuck in a bathtub!<\/p>\n But maybe American judicial writing would have been more exciting and easier to study if judges had been using exclamation points all along. According to Marbury v. Madison<\/em>, which established judicial review, \u201cIt is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is!\u201d That\u2019s pretty awesome. Rand and Ron Paul would have gone to bat hard for McCulloch v. Maryland<\/em>\u00a0in 1819: \u201cThe power to tax involves the power to destroy!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSeparate educational facilities are inherently unequal!\u201d Brown v. Board of Education<\/em> would go. That\u2019s for sure. John Marshall Harlan\u2019s brave dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson<\/em> might have carried more weight if he\u2019d written: \u201cThe Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens!\u201d As Miranda v. Arizona<\/em> might say, \u201cYou have the right to remain silent!\u201d Please!<\/p>\n I do exclaim: we all know how this will end. President Trump will ignore the court\u2019s ruling or find a way around it. He\u2019s going to build his big, beautiful ballroom. And then he and his administration will say to Judge Leon: Bye, Felicia!<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n