Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05134/USCOURTS-caDC-12-05134-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Federal Election Commission
Appellee
Ralph Nader
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued January 14, 2013 Decided August 2, 2013

No. 12-5134

RALPH NADER,

APPELLANT

v.

FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:10-cv-00989)

Oliver B. Hall argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellant.

Seth Nesin, Attorney, Federal Election Commission, 

argued the cause for appellee. With him on the brief were 

Anthony Herman, General Counsel, David Kolker, Associate 

General Counsel, and Adav Noti, Acting Assistant General 

Counsel. 

Before: HENDERSON and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges, and 

RANDOLPH, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

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GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: In the wake of his 2004 run for

the presidency, Ralph Nader filed an administrative complaint 

with the Federal Election Commission alleging that various 

organizations violated election laws during their efforts to keep 

him off the ballot. The FEC dismissed Nader’s complaint. In 

the lawsuit that followed, the district court granted summary 

judgment against him and later denied his motion to alter or 

amend its judgment. See Nader v. FEC, 823 F. Supp. 2d 53 

(D.D.C. 2011); Nader v. FEC, 854 F. Supp. 2d 30 (D.D.C. 

2012). We dismiss Nader’s appeal of those decisions because 

he lacks standing.

I

Nader brought suit under 2 U.S.C. § 437g(a)(8), which 

provides that “[a]ny party aggrieved by an order of the 

Commission dismissing a complaint . . . may file a petition 

with the United States District Court for the District of 

Columbia.” We have observed that this statute “permits a 

private party to challenge the FEC’s decision not to enforce” 

the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and its attendant 

regulations. Chamber of Commerce of U.S. v. FEC, 69 F.3d 

600, 603 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (italics in original). But although

§ 437g(a)(8) creates a cause of action of considerable breadth, 

it “does not confer standing; it confers a right to sue upon 

parties who otherwise already have standing.” Common Cause 

v. FEC, 108 F.3d 413, 419 (D.C. Cir. 1997). Neither the parties 

nor the district court addressed Nader’s standing, but we asked 

the parties for supplemental briefing on the issue because we

have “a special obligation to satisfy [ourselves] not only of 

[our] own jurisdiction, but also that of the lower courts in a 

cause under review.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 

523 U.S. 83, 95 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Nader relies on the doctrines of competitor standing and 

informational standing to “satisfy the ‘irreducible 

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constitutional minimum’ of Article III standing: injury-in-fact, 

causation, and redressability.” Shaw v. Marriott Int’l, Inc., 605 

F.3d 1039, 1042 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (quoting Lujan v. Defenders 

of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992)). We hold that he 

lacks standing under both theories.

II

Injury from an “illegally structured” competitive 

environment can give rise to competitor standing. LaRoque v. 

Holder, 650 F.3d 777, 787 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). Nader alleges that he was “forced to compete” 

in an “illegally structured campaign environment” because his 

opponents were flouting election laws without suffering any 

consequences from the FEC. Pet’r’s Supp. Br. 8. But the cases 

in which we have recognized competitor standing in the 

electoral context highlight the problem with Nader’s argument: 

a favorable decision here will not redress the injuries he claims.

In Shays, we held that candidates had competitor standing to 

challenge an FEC regulation they claimed would harm their 

chances in the next election. See Shays v. FEC, 414 F.3d 76, 

82, 85-87 (D.C. Cir. 2005). In LaRoque, we held that a 

candidate had competitor standing to seek to enjoin the 

Attorney General from enforcing the Voting Rights Act in a 

way that would diminish the candidate’s chances of victory in 

an upcoming election. See LaRoque, 650 F.3d at 788.

Unlike the plaintiffs in LaRoque and Shays, who 

successfully asserted competitor standing in the midst of 

ongoing campaigns, Nader seeks to compel FEC enforcement 

against his opponents years after the campaign has run its 

course. Even if the FEC were to afford Nader the relief he 

seeks, that outcome would not reverse the ballot-access harms 

that Nader alleges he suffered in 2004, or compensate him for 

them. Cf. Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 45 

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(1976) (discussing how “prospective relief will remove the 

harm” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Shays, 414 F.3d at 

86 (noting that the candidates asserting competitor standing 

had to “anticipate” defending against potentially illegal 

campaign tactics); MD Pharm., Inc. v. DEA, 133 F.3d 8, 9, 

11-12 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (discussing the relief available to a 

“current” pharmaceutical manufacturer seeking to have its 

competitor’s registration revoked); Liquid Carbonic Indus. 

Corp. v. FERC, 29 F.3d 697, 701 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (noting that 

the administrative order at issue “will increase competition” as 

a prospective matter); Freedom Republicans, Inc. v. FEC, 13 

F.3d 412, 418 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (noting that redressability is 

“quintessentially predictive”).

Nader might have been able to establish standing as a 

competitor if he had shown that the FEC’s determination 

injured his ability to fight the next election. But even though

Nader has not ruled out another foray into electoral politics, his 

statements on the matter are too speculative to provide the 

basis for an injury to his competitive interests. See McConnell

v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93, 226 (2003) (denying standing to Senator 

McConnell because his assertion that he might encounter 

unfavorable treatment under a newly-enacted statute was “too

remote temporally”). In contrast to the candidates in LaRoque 

and Shays, who had averred that they had concrete plans to run 

for office in the future, see LaRoque, 650 F.3d at 788; Shays, 

414 F.3d at 82, Nader has alleged only that he “may run for 

office again,” Compl. ¶ 6. As the Supreme Court said in Lujan, 

“‘some day’ intentions . . . do not support a finding of the 

‘actual or imminent’ injury that our cases require.” 504 U.S. at 

564.

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III

Nader fares no better with his claim of informational 

standing. A plaintiff has informational standing when he 

alleges that he has “fail[ed] to obtain information which must 

be publicly disclosed pursuant to a statute.” FEC v. Akins, 524 

U.S. 11, 21 (1998). It is not enough, however, to assert that 

disclosure is required by law. Only if the statute grants a 

plaintiff a concrete interest in the information sought will he be 

able to assert an injury in fact. See id. at 24 (“Often the fact that 

an interest is abstract and the fact that it is widely shared go 

hand in hand. But their association is not invariable, and where 

a harm is concrete, though widely shared, the Court has found 

‘injury in fact.’” (citation omitted)). For instance, in Akins, the 

Supreme Court held that a group of voters had standing to 

argue that the FECA entitled them to information about the 

activities of a lobbying organization because they had an 

interest in evaluating candidates and outside groups. See id. at 

21, 24-25. Similarly, in Shays, we held that a member of the 

U.S. House of Representatives had standing to argue that the 

FEC’s disclosure regulations were denying him information 

owed to the public under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act

because he had an interest in evaluating the role of outside 

groups in a presidential election. See Shays v. FEC, 528 F.3d 

914, 923 (D.C. Cir. 2008).

The Supreme Court’s ruling in Akins and our ruling in

Shays establish that litigants who claim a right to information 

allege the type of concrete injury needed for standing to bring a 

FECA claim if the disclosure they seek is related to their 

informed participation in the political process. See Akins, 524 

U.S. at 21; Shays, 528 F.3d at 923. Nader does not seek 

information to facilitate his informed participation in the 

political process. Instead, he seeks to force the FEC to “‘get the 

bad guys.’” Common Cause, 108 F.3d at 418. His complaint

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alleges that a large number of lawyers and law firms made 

undisclosed, in-kind contributions of legal services to the 

efforts of the John Kerry campaign to keep Nader’s name off 

the ballot in numerous states. He asks the FEC to compel 

information from participants in the ballot contests in the hope 

of showing that they violated the prohibitions on undisclosed 

“contributions” and “expenditures” found in 2 U.S.C. §§ 441a 

and 441b. Because this amounts to seeking disclosure to 

promote law enforcement, Nader asserts an injury that is not 

sufficiently concrete to confer standing. See Citizens for 

Responsibility and Ethics in Wash. v. FEC, 475 F.3d 337, 341 

(D.C. Cir. 2007); Wertheimer v. FEC, 268 F.3d 1070, 1074 

(D.C. Cir. 2001); Common Cause, 108 F.3d at 418. And to the 

extent Nader seeks disclosure to gain a leg up on his opponents 

in other litigation, that too is sufficiently distant from the 

reasons that supported the decisions in Akins and Shays that we 

hold Nader lacks informational standing.

*

IV

Because Nader lacked standing, the district court lacked

jurisdiction to hear his suit, and we vacate the judgment and 

remand the case with instructions to dismiss the case for lack of 

jurisdiction.

So ordered.

 * Nader and the opponents of his inclusion on the Pennsylvania 

ballot have been embroiled in extensive litigation since 2004, and 

Nader avers that the information sought in his 2008 FEC complaint 

would be useful to him in those controversies. See Nader Aff.

¶¶ 9-17.

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