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Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., 551 U.S. 06157 (2007) on 2008-08-28
- The question that is presented here is whether this broad reading of
  Flast is correct
- A plaintiff must allege personal injury fairly traceable to the defendant’s
  allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief.”
- 11 more annotations...
- - Because the interests of the taxpayer are, in essence, the interests of the
    public-at-large, deciding a constitutional claim based solely on taxpayer
    standing “would be[,] not to decide a judicial controversy, but to assume a
    position of authority over the governmental acts of another and co-equal
    department, an authority which plainly we do not possess.”
  - The Court set out a two-part test for determining whether a federal taxpayer has
    standing to challenge an allegedly unconstitutional expenditure:
  - “First, the taxpayer must establish a logical link between that status and the
    type of legislative enactment attacked. Thus, a taxpayer will be a proper party
    to allege the unconstitutionality only of exercises of congressional power under
    the taxing and spending clause of Art. I, §8, of the Constitution. It will not
    be sufficient to allege an incidental expenditure of tax funds in the
    administration of an essentially regulatory statute… . Secondly, the taxpayer
    must establish a nexus between that status and the precise nature of the
    constitutional infringement alleged. Under this requirement, the taxpayer must
    show that the challenged enactment exceeds specific constitutional limitations
    imposed upon the exercise of the congressional taxing and spending power and not
    simply that the enactment is generally beyond the powers delegated to Congress
    by Art. I, §8.”
  - Congress provided general appropriations to the Executive Branch to fund its
    day-to-day activities.⁴ These appropriations did not
    expressly authorize, direct, or even mention the expenditures of which
    respondents complain. Those expenditures resulted from executive discretion, not
    congressional action
  - Because the expenditures that respondents challenge were not expressly
    authorized or mandated by any specific congressional enactment, respondents’
    lawsuit is not directed at an exercise of congressional power, see Valley
    Forge, 454 U.S., at 479, and thus lacks the requisite “logical nexus”
    between taxpayer status “and the type of legislative enactment attacked.”
    Flast, 392 U.S., at 102.
  - Because almost all Executive Branch activity is ultimately funded by some
    congressional appropriation, extending the Flast exception to purely
    executive expenditures would effectively subject every federal action—be it a
    conference, proclamation or speech—to Establishment Clause challenge by any
    taxpayer in federal court. To see the wide swathe of activity that respondents’
    proposed rule would cover, one need look no further than the amended complaint
    in this action, which focuses largely on speeches and presentations made by
    Executive Branch officials. See, e.g., Amended Complaint ¶32, App. to
    Pet. for Cert. 73a (challenging Executive Branch officials’ “support of national
    and regional conferences”); id., ¶33, App. to Pet. for Cert. 73a–75a
    (challenging content of speech by Secretary of Education); id., ¶¶35, 36,
    App. to Pet. for Cert. 76a (challenging content of Presidential speeches);
    id., ¶41, App. to Pet. for Cert. 77a (challenging Executive Branch
    officials’ “public appearances” and “speeches”). Such a broad reading would
    ignore the first prong of Flast’s standing test, which requires “a
    logical link between [taxpayer] status and the type of legislative enactment
    attacked.”
  - It would also raise serious
    separation-of-powers concerns. As we have recognized, Flast itself gave
    too little weight to these concerns. By framing the standing question solely in
    terms of whether the dispute would be presented in an adversary context and in a
    form traditionally viewed as capable of judicial resolution, Flast
    “failed to recognize that this doctrine has a separation-of-powers component,
    which keeps courts within certain traditional bounds vis-À-vis the
    other branches, concrete adverseness or not.” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343 , n. 3 (1996); see also Valley Forge, 454
    U.S., at 471. Respondents’ position, if adopted, would repeat and compound this
    mistake.
  - We do not extend Flast, but we also do not overrule it. We leave
    Flast as we found it.
  - For these reasons, the judgment of the Court of
    Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is reversed.
    
    It is so ordered
  - irreducible constitutional minimum of standing,” which minimum consists of (1) a
    “concrete and particularized” “ ‘injury in fact’ ” that is (2) fairly traceable
    to the defendant’s alleged unlawful conduct and (3) likely to be redressed by a
    favorable decision.
  - Flast is indistinguishable from this case for purposes of Article
    III. Whether the challenged government expenditure is expressly allocated by a
    specific congressional enactment has absolutely no relevance to the
    Article III criteria of injury in fact, traceability, and redressability
Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737 (1984) on 2008-08-27
- The issue before us is whether plaintiffs have standing to bring this suit
- In May 1977 the District Court permitted intervention as a
  defendant by petitioner Allen, the head of one of the private school systems
  identified in the complaint. Id., at 54-55. Thereafter, progress in the lawsuit
  was stalled for several years. During this period, the IRS reviewed its
  challenged policies and proposed new Revenue Procedures to tighten requirements
  for eligibility for tax-exempt status for private schools. See 43 Fed.Reg. 37296
  (1978); 44 Fed.Reg. 9451 (1979).15
  In 1979, however, Congress blocked any strengthening of the IRS guidelines at
  least until October 1980.16
  The District Court thereupon considered and granted the defendants' motion to
  dismiss the complaint, concluding that respondents lack standing, that the
  judicial task proposed by respondents is inappropriately intrusive for a federal
  court, and that awarding the requested relief would be contrary to the will of
  Congress expressed in the 1979 ban on strengthening IRS guidelines. Wright v.
  Miller, 480 F.Supp. 790 (DC 1979).
  
  18
  The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
  Circuit reversed, concluding that respondents have standing to maintain this
  lawsuit. [...]426 U.S. 26, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976), "suggests
  that litigation concerning tax liability is a matter between taxpayer and IRS,
  with the door barely ajar for third party challenges." 211 U.S.App.D.C., at 239,
  656 F.2d, at 828. The court concluded, however, that the Simon case is
  inapposite because respondents claim no injury dependent on taxpayers' actions:
  "[t]hey claim indifference as to the course private schools would take." Id., at
  240, 656 F.2d, at 829.17
  Instead, the court observed, "[t]he sole injury [respondents] claim is the
  denigration they suffer as black parents and schoolchildren when their
  government graces with tax-exempt status educational institutions in their
  communities that treat members of their race as persons of lesser worth." Id.,
  at 238, 656 F.2d, at 827. The court held this denigration injury enough to give
  respondents standing since it was this injury which supported standing in Coit
  v. Green, 404 U.S. 997, 92 S.Ct. 564, 30 L.Ed.2d 550 (1971), summarily aff'g
  Green v. Connally, 330 F.Supp. 1150 (DC); Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455, 93 S.Ct. 2804, 37 L.Ed.2d 723 (1973); and
  Gilmore v. City of Montgomery, 417 U.S. 556, 94 S.Ct. 2416, 41 L.Ed.2d 304 (1974). 211
  U.S.App.D.C., at 239-243, 656 F.2d, at 828-832. The Court of Appeals also held
  that the 1979 congressional actions were not intended to preclude judicial
  remedies and that the relief requested by respondents could be fashioned
  "without large scale judicial intervention in the administrative process," id.,
  at 248, 656 F.2d, at 837.18
  The court accordingly remanded the case to the District Court for further
  proceedings, enjoining the defendants meanwhile from granting tax-exempt status
  to any racially discriminatory school, App. 81-84.
  
  19
  The Government defendants and defendant-intervenor Allen filed
  separate petitions for a writ of certiorari in this Court. They both sought
  review of the Court of Appeals' holding that respondents have standing to bring
  this lawsuit. We granted certiorari, 462 U.S. 1130, 103 S.Ct. 3109, 77 L.Ed.2d
  1365 (1983), and now reverse.
- 6 more annotations...
- - It is in their complaint's second claim of injury that
    respondents allege harm to a concrete, personal interest that can support
    standing in some circumstances. The injury they identify—their children's
    diminished ability to receive an education in a racially integrated school—is,
    beyond any doubt, not only judicially cognizable but, as shown by cases from
    Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), to Bob Jones
    University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574, 103 S.Ct. 2017, 76 L.Ed.2d 157 (1983), one of
    the most serious injuries recognized in our legal system. Despite the
    constitutional importance of curing the injury alleged by respondents, however,
    the federal judiciary may not redress it unless standing requirements are met.
    In this case, respondents' second claim of injury cannot support standing
    because the injury alleged is not fairly traceable to the Government conduct
    respondents challenge as unlawful.22
    
    36
    The illegal conduct challenged by respondents is the IRS's grant
    of tax exemptions to some racially discriminatory schools. The line of causation
    between that conduct and desegregation of respondents' schools is attenuated at
    best. From the perspective of the IRS, the injury to respondents is highly
    indirect and "results from the independent action of some third party not before
    the court," Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S., at 42, 96
    S.Ct., at 1926. As the Court pointed out in Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S., at 505,
    95 S.Ct., at 2208 "the indirectness of the injury . . . may make it
    substantially more difficult to meet the minimum requirement of Art. III. . .
    ."
  - The diminished ability of respondents' children to receive a desegregated
    education would be fairly traceable to unlawful IRS grants of tax exemptions
    only if there were enough racially discriminatory private schools receiving tax
    exemptions in respondents' communities for withdrawal of those exemptions to
    make an appreciable difference in public school integration.
  - "Carried to its logical end, [respondents'] approach would have the federal
    courts as virtually continuing monitors of the wisdom and soundness of Executive
    action; such a role is appropriate for the Congress acting through its
    committees and the 'power of the purse'; it is not the role of the judiciary,
    absent actual present or immediately threatened injury resulting from unlawful
    governmental action."
  - The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly reversed, and the injunction
    issued by that court is vacated.
  - Persons seeking judicial relief from an Art. III court must have standing to
    maintain their cause of action. At a minimum, the standing requirement is not
    met unless the plaintiff has "such a personal stake in the outcome of the
    controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the
    presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends. . . ." Baker v.
    Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 703, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962).
    Under the Court's cases, this "personal stake" requirement is satisfied if the
    person seeking redress has suffered, or is threatened with, some "distinct and
    palpable injury," Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2206, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975),
    and if there is some causal connection between the asserted injury and the
    conduct being challenged
  - The purpose of the standing inquiry is to measure the
    plaintiff's stake in the outcome, not whether a court has the authority to
    provide it with the outcome it seeks:
    
    107
    "[T]he standing question is whether the plaintiff has 'alleged
    such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy' as to warrant his
    invocation of federal-court jurisdiction and to justify the exercise of the
    court's remedial powers on his behalf."
Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264 (1821) on 2008-08-21
- 1st. The first question to be considered is, whether the jurisdiction of this
  Court is excluded by the character of the parties, one of them being a State,
  and the other a citizen of that State?
Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 14 U.S. 304 (1816) on 2008-08-20
- 'The court is unanimously of opinion, that the appellate power of the supreme
  court of the United States does not extend to this court, under a sound
  construction of the constitution of the United States; that so much of the 25th
  section of the act of congress to establish the judicial courts of the United
  States, as extends the appellate jurisdiction of the supreme court to this
  court, is not in pursuance of the constitution of the United States; that the
  writ of error, in this cause, was improvidently allowed under the authority of
  that act; that the proceedings thereon in the supreme court were, coram non
  judice, in relation to this court, and that obedience to its mandate be
  declined by the court.'
- 'the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor
  prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively,
  or to the people.'
- 7 more annotations...
- - The judicial power of the United States shall be vested (not may be
    vested) in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as congress may, from
    time to time, ordain and establish. Could congress have lawfully refused to
    create a supreme court, or to vest in it the constitutional jurisdiction? 'The
    judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices
    during good behaviour, and shall, at stated times, receive, for their
    services, a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance
    in office.' Could congress create or limit any other tenure of the judicial
    office? Could they refuse to pay, at stated times, the stipulated salary, or
    diminish it during the continuance in office? But one answer can be given to
    these questions: it must be in the negative. The object of the constitution was
    to establish three great departments of government; the legislative, the
    executive, and the judicial departments. The first was to pass laws, the second
    to approve and execute them, and the third to expound and enforce them. Without
    the latter, it would be impossible to carry into effect some of the express
    provisions of the constitution. How, otherwise, could crimes against the United
    States be tried and punished? How could causes between two states be heard and
    determined? The judicial power must, therefore, be vested in some court, by
    congress; and to suppose that it was not an obligation binding on them, but
    might, at their pleasure, be omitted or declined, is to suppose that, under the
    sanction of the constitution, they might defeat the constitution itself; a
    construction which would lead to such a result cannot be sound.
  - It would seem, therefore, to follow, that congress are bound to create some
    inferior courts, in which to vest all that jurisdiction which, under the
    constitution, is exclusively vested in the United States, and of which
    the supreme court cannot take original cognizance. They might establish one or
    more inferior courts; they might parcel out the jurisdiction among such courts,
    from time to time, at their own pleasure. But the whole judicial power of the
    United States should be, at all times, vested either in an original or appellate
    form, in some courts created under its authority.
  - This construction will be fortified by an attentive examination
    of the second section of the third article. The words are 'the judicial power
    shall extend,' &c. Much minute and elaborate criticism has been
    employed upon these words. It has been argued that they are equivalent to the
    words 'may extend,' and that 'extend' means to widen to new cases not before
    within the scope of the power. For the reason which have been already stated, we
    are of opinion that the words are used in an imperative sense. They import an
    absolute grant of judicial power. They cannot have a relative signification
    applicable to powers already granted; for the American people had not
    made any previous grant. The constitution was for a new government, organized
    with new substantive powers, and not a mere supplementary charter to a
    government already existing. The confederation was a compact between states; and
    its structure and powers were wholly unlike those of the national government.
    The constitution was an act of the people of the United States to supercede the
    confederation, and not to be ingrafted on it, as a stock through which it was to
    receive life and nourishment.
  - The courts of the United States can, without question, revise the proceedings of
    the executive and legislative authorities of the states, and if they are found
    to be contrary to the constitution, may declare them to be of no legal validity.
    Surely the exercise of the same right over judicial tribunals is not a higher or
    more dangerous act of sovereign power.
  - A motive of another kind, perfectly compatible with the most sincere respect for
    state tribunals, might induce the grant of appellate power over their decisions.
    That motive is the importance, and even necessity of uniformity of
    decisions throughout the whole United States, upon all subjects within the
    purview of the constitution. Judges of equal learning and integrity, in
    different states, might differently interpret a statute, or a treaty of the
    United States, or even the constitution itself: If there were no revising
    authority to control these jarring and discordant judgments, and harmonize them
    into uniformity, the laws, the treaties, and the constitution of the United
    States would be different in different states, and might, perhaps, never have
    precisely the same construction, obligation, or efficacy, in any two states. The
    public mischiefs that would attend such a state of things would be truly
    deplorable; and it cannot be believed that they could have escaped the
    enlightened convention which formed the constitution. What, indeed, might then
    have been only prophecy, has now become fact; and the appellate jurisdiction
    must continue to be the only adequate remedy for such evils.
  - There is an additional consideration, which is entitled to great weight. The
    constitution of the United States was designed for the common and equal benefit
    of all the people of the United States. The judicial power was granted for the
    same benign and salutary purposes. It was not to be exercised exclusively for
    the benefit of parties who might be plaintiffs, and would elect the national
    forum, but also for the protection of defendants who might be entitled to try
    their rights, or assert their priviliges, before the same forum. Yet, if the
    construction contended for be correct, it will follow, that as the plaintiff may
    always elect the state court, the defendant may be deprived of all the security
    which the constitution intended in aid of his rights. Such a state of things
    can, in no respect, be considered as giving equal rights.
  - It is a final judgment in a suit in a state court, denying the validity of a
    statute of the United States; and unless a distinction can be made between
    proceedings under a mandate, and proceedings in an original suit, a writ of
    error is the proper remedy to revise that judgment. In our opinion no legal
    distinction exists between the cases.
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) on 2008-08-20
- It is then the opinion of the court
- That by signing the commission of Mr. Marbury, the president of the United
  States appointed him a justice of peace for the county of Washington in the
  district of Columbia; and that the seal of the United States, affixed thereto by
  the secretary of state, is conclusive testimony of the verity of the signature,
  and of the completion of the appointment; and that the appointment conferred on
  him a legal right to the office for the space of five years
- 12 more annotations...
- - That, having this legal title to the office, he has a consequent right to the
    commission; a refusal to deliver which is a plain violation of that right, for
    which the laws of his country afford him a remedy.
  - The province of the court is, solely, to decide on the rights of individuals,
    not to inquire how the executive, or executive officers, perform duties in which
    they have a discretion. Questions, in their nature political, or which are, by
    the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive, can never be made in this
    court.
  - If it had been intended to leave it in the discretion of the
    legislature to apportion the judicial power between the supreme and inferior
    courts according to the will of that body, it would certainly have been useless
    to have proceeded further than to have defined the judicial power, and the
    tribunals in which it should be vested. The subsequent part of the section is
    mere surplusage, is entirely without meaning, if such is to be the construction.
    If congress remains at liberty to give this court appellate jurisdiction, where
    the constitution has declared their jurisdiction shall be original; and original
    jurisdiction where the constitution has declared it shall be appellate; the
    distribution of jurisdiction made in the constitution, is form without
    substance.
  - When an instrument organizing fundamentally a judicial system,
    divides it into one supreme, and so many inferior courts as the legislature may
    ordain and establish; then enumerates its powers, and proceeds so far to
    distribute them, as to define the jurisdiction of the supreme court by declaring
    the cases in which it shall take original jurisdiction, and that in others it
    shall take appellate jurisdiction, the plain import of the words seems to be,
    that in one class of cases its jurisdiction is original, and not appellate; in
    the other it is appellate, and not original. If any other construction would
    render the clause inoperative, that is an additional reason for rejecting such
    other construction, and for adhering to the obvious meaning.
  - Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either
    a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level
    with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the
    legislature shall please to alter it.
  - If the former part of the alternative be true, then a
    legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law: if the latter part be
    true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people,
    to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.
  - It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what
    the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity
    expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the
    courts must decide on the operation of each.
  - So if a law be in opposition to the constitution: if both the
    law and the constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must
    either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the constitution;
    or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law: the court must
    determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very
    essence of judicial duty.
  - If then the courts are to regard the constitution; and the constitution is
    superior to any ordinary act of the legislature; the constitution, and not such
    ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply.
  - From these and many other selections which might be made, it is apparent, that
    the framers of the constitution contemplated that instrument as a rule for the
    government of courts, as well as of the legislature.
  - Why otherwise does it direct the judges to take an oath to support it? This oath
    certainly applies, in an especial manner, to their conduct in their official
    character. How immoral to impose it on them, if they were to be used as the
    instruments, and the knowing instruments, for violating what they swear to
    support!
  - Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States
    confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written
    constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void, and that
    courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.
LII: Constitution on 2008-08-19
- Representatives and direct taxes shall
  be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union,
  according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to
  the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of
  years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
LII: Constitution on 2008-08-19

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