The Kennedy Center reportedly adopted a charter earlier this year limiting voting rights to trustees appointed by Donald Trump, a controversial move that appeared to expose a long-standing plan to embed Trump’s name into the center.
The bylaws may violate the agency’s charter, which was revised in May and stipulate that board members appointed by Congress, known as ex-officio members, cannot vote or count toward a quorum, The Washington Post reported.
When the board voted unanimously on Dec. 18 to add Trump’s name to the center, the new rules took effect immediately and renamed the building the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
The name change has since sparked a wave of protests. Artists canceled bookings and MPs vowed to overturn the name change. Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio, even filed a lawsuit to overturn the bill, arguing that changing the center’s name would require congressional approval.
Trump took over as chairman of the committee in February, quickly purging current members while installing his supporters, including his longtime foreign policy adviser Ric Grenell, whom he appointed chairman of the center. Grenell has been an outspoken defender of Trump’s “America First” ideology and has not been afraid to ruffle feathers in his past roles as ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence (he was the first openly gay intelligence community leader).
Just before accepting the Kennedy Center appointment, Grenell served as the President’s envoy for special assignments and was involved in securing the release of Americans detained in Venezuela.
The center lists 34 presidentially appointed board members and 23 ex-officio members, which by law must include the mayor of Washington, D.C., the Librarian of Congress and the Senate majority and minority leaders. The federal law supporting the center’s establishment identifies ex-officio members as trustees of the center, responsible for maintaining the center as a monument to President John F. Kennedy, The Washington Post reported.
Roma Daravi, the center’s vice president for public relations, told The Washington Post that the rules had been changed based on long-standing practice in which ex-officio members do not vote: “The bylaws were modified to reflect this long-standing precedent, and everyone received a technical change before the meeting and after the modification.”
Dharavi continued: “Some members, including ex-officio members, attended in person, others by phone, no concerns were raised, no objections were raised and the charter was adopted unanimously.”
Ellen April, a legal scholar at UCLA, told the newspaper that such restrictions on voting rights violate the center’s charter.
“Obviously the intent of the charter provision was to entrust the direction of the Kennedy Center to a broader group than just presidential appointees,” she said.
The revelation comes as new data shows a sharp decline in television ratings for this year’s Kennedy Center Honors. When this year’s annual honors ceremony, hosted by Trump himself, was broadcast on CBS, the number of viewers hit a record low of 3.01 million, a sharp drop of 25% from last year. Some of Trump’s favorite artists also attended the event, including Gloria Gaynor, Keith and George Strait.
As artists canceled bookings, Trump issued a series of statements from supporters on social media on Tuesday criticizing the Kennedy family’s alleged lack of support for the center. The post on his Truth social network came just hours after the Kennedy family announced the death of Kennedy granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg from leukemia. Tatiana Schlossberg died of leukemia at the age of 35.
The Guardian has contacted the Kennedy Center for comment.