The Kennedy Center changed its bylaws earlier this year to limit voting to board members appointed by the president.
In a new report, The Washington Post confirmed the performing arts center adopted a revised set of rules in May to specify that board members designated by Congress — known as ex officio members — could not vote or count toward a quorum. Only those who were presidentially-appointed by Donald Trump would have their vote counted. This preceded a vote on Dec. 18 in which the board voted to change the D.C. institution’s name to the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
The Kennedy Center currently has 34 presidentially-appointed board members, including Trump as the chair, and 23 ex officio seats. Per federal law, ex officio members include 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.
According to the Post, the Kennedy Center’s bylaws have not necessarily previously designated ex officio members as able to vote. However, the publication reported that the Center’s most recent tax filings listed 59 “voting members” of its governing body, which includes both general and ex officio members. A former Kennedy Center staffer said ex officio members were “always included in debate and discussion.”
“Theoretically they could vote, but our practice was not to have them vote or count toward quorum,” the staffer told the Post.
Several other revisions were made to the Center’s bylaws in March, including the wording that general trustees “serve at the pleasure of the President.” The revisions also feature a provision saying the president can be appointed as the chief executive officer and can be compensated for the position.
Almost immediately after taking office again in January, Trump moved to take over the preeminent cultural institution. In an effort to make the Kennedy Center “GREAT AGAIN,” as he wrote on Truth Social back in February, Trump gutted the center’s bipartisan board, installed a crony as interim executive director, and made himself chairman. In December, the new signage appeared on the facade.
All of this has prompted waves of criticism and backlash. Many artists have canceled Kennedy Center concerts, while others have stepped down from advisory roles. Musician Chuck Redd, who’s led the Kennedy Center’s annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jam since 2006, opted to cancel it this year, saying, “When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert.” (Grenell has since threatened to take legal action against Redd, demanding $1 million in damages.)
Last week, April McClain Delaney, a Democrative representative from Maryland, introduced legislation to remove Trump’s name, while Joyce Beatty, a Democratic representative from Ohio, filed a lawsuit over the matter. Beatty’s lawyer, Norman Eisen — a former White House ethics counsel under Barack Obama — 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.”
“Because Congress named the center by statute, changing the Kennedy Center’s name requires an act of Congress,” the lawsuit says, noting that “Congress intended the Center to be a living memorial to President Kennedy — and a crown jewel of the arts for all Americans, irrespective of party.”
Trump, for his part, appears to be relishing the takeover, even serving as emcee of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors ceremony. The show was broadcast on CBS on Dec. 23, however Programming Insider reported preliminary Nielsen estimates of just 2.65 million viewers — down from 4.1 million in 2024. CBS even hacked up Trump’s opening remarks, cutting his 12-minute speech down to just two minutes.
