A federal judge on Tuesday ruled in favor of an Ohio House Democrat who is seeking to block efforts to add President Donald Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center.

In his ruling, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said that the Trump-led board of the Kennedy Center could not add Trump’s name to the building or rename the grounds after the president. 

The order represents the second time Cooper has ruled in favor of Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex-officio member of the Center’s board, on changes made to the cultural institution.

“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing. The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted,” the ruling said.

Beatty filed the lawsuit in December after a reshuffled board first voted to close the Center for two years and add Trump’s name to the marquee. She argued that the board did not follow federal law in its initial closures and that the law barred renaming the center after Trump.

Cooper first ruled against adding Trump’s name to the institution in May, finding that federal law mandated the name of the facility as the “John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” and required that no other person be memorialized there.

Tuesday’s ruling came ahead of a planned board action to add language honoring Trump to the Center’s name and separately renaming the Center’s grounds to the “President Donald J. Trump Plaza;” it explicitly blocked those alternatives.

The board also planned to vote on whether to close the Center for two years for renovations during a meeting Tuesday. Beatty filed a court notice later in the day that said the board did vote to close the Center.

Trump, the chair of the board, later posted on social media that if the courts do not side with him and place his name on the Center, the renovations would not occur.

Court records have said that if those renovations do not go through, the Center may need to be demolished.

Beatty’s counsel Norm Eisen praised the Tuesday ruling in a statement on the social platform X.

“2 times the court has told Trump the same thing: You are not above the law. Legal sanity has once again prevailed over Trump’s vanity. This is a victory for the memory of Pres. Kennedy & our nation,” Eisen’s statement said.

Trump criticized the ruling in a post on his social media website, Truth Social, Tuesday, alleging the building was unsafe, citing a recent collapse of part of the center’s ceiling. He said millions of dollars in repairs are needed to reopen the building.

“A very hostile and conflicted Judge (What else is new?) seems like he won’t let that happen, in which case, unfortunately, the Building is destined to doom,” Trump said.

The effort by Trump and his appointees to the board come amid the president’s broader efforts to reshape official Washington in his image. 

That includes tearing down and rebuilding the East Wing of the White House for a planned ballroom complex, erecting a 250-foot memorial arch and other efforts that are currently locked up in court fights.

The Trump administration has continued to fight to add his name to the center, including a pending appeal of Cooper’s initial May ruling.