The Kennedy Center was reported to have adopted bylaws earlier this year limiting voting to trustees appointed by Donald Trump – a controversial move that appears to reveal the long-held plan to install Trump’s name on the center.
The bylaws, in possible violation of the institution’s charter, were revised in May and specified that board members appointed by Congress, known as ex-officio members, could not vote or count for a quorum, according to the Washington Post.
The new rule was in effect when the board voted unanimously on Dec. 18 to add Trump’s name to the center, rebranding the building as the Donald J Trump and John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
Since then the name change has sparked a wave of protests. Artists canceled bookings and members of Congress vowed to reverse the name change. Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio, is even suing to reverse it on the grounds that renaming the center requires an act of Congress.
Trump took over as chairman of the board in February, quickly purged the sitting members, while installing his supporters – including his foreign policy adviser Ric Grenell, whom he appointed as chairman of the center. Grenell has been a vocal tribune of Trump’s “America First” ideology, and has not been afraid to ruffle feathers during his past stints as ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence (he was the first openly gay person to lead the intelligence community).
Just prior to his appointment at the Kennedy Center, Grenell served as the president’s envoy for special missions, and was involved in securing the release of Americans held in Venezuela.
The center lists 34 board members who are presidential appointees and 23 ex-officio members, who by law must include the mayor of Washington DC, the head of the librarian of Congress, and the majority and minority leaders of the Senate. The federal law underpinning the center’s establishment identified ex-officio members as among the place’s trustees, tasked with maintaining it as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy, the Post reported.
Roma Daravi, the vice-president of the center for public relations, told the Post that the rules had been changed according to the long-standing convention that the ex-officio members did not vote: “The by-laws were revised to reflect this precedent long ago and everyone received the technical changes both before the meeting and after the revisions.”
Daravi continued: “Some members (including ex officio) attended in person, others by phone, and no concerns were raised, no one objected, and the bylaws passed unanimously.”
Ellen Aprill, a legal scholar at UCLA, told the paper that such voting rights limits violated the center’s charter.
“Obviously the intention of the provisions of the charter was to entrust the guidance of the Kennedy Center to a broad group, not just to those appointed by the president,” she said.
The revelation comes as new figures showed a sharp drop in television ratings for this year’s Kennedy Center honors awards. A record low audience of 3.01m watched this year’s broadcast of the annual honors awards – hosted by Trump himself – when it was screened by CBS, marking a sharp 25% drop from last year. The event included appearances by some of Trump’s favorite artists, including Gloria Gaynor, Kiss and George Strait.
As performers cancel bookings, Trump took to social media on Tuesday to post a series of statements from supporters criticizing the Kennedy family’s supposed lack of support for the center. His posts on his Truth Social network began a few hours after the Kennedy family announced the death of Tatiana Schlossberg, JFK’s granddaughter, who died at the age of 35, from leukemia.
The Guardian has contacted the Kennedy Center for comment.