# United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 17, 2016 Decided April 22 , 2016

No. 15

- 5065

V ICTOR K. W ILLIAMS
, A PPELLANT

v.

J ACOB J. L EW
, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPA CITY AS S ECRETARY OF

THE U.S. T REASURY D EPARTMENT AND U NITED S TATES D EPARTMENT OF THE T REASURY
, A PPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia (No. 1:14

- cv

- 00183)

Justin G. Florence argued the cause for appellant. On the
briefs was Vict or Williams , pro se. Douglas Hallward

Driemeier

, Edward F. Roche , and Jonathan Ference

- Burke entered appearances.

Molly R. Silfen , Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, argued the cause for appellees. With her on the brief were Benjamin C. Mizer , Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Mark B. Stern , Attorney.2

Before: T ATEL and G RIFFITH
, Circuit Judges , and
S ENTELLE
, Senior Circuit Judge

.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge
S ENTELLE

.

S ENTELLE
, Senior Circuit Judge : Appellant Victor
Williams , as a holder of U.S. public debt, challenges the constitutionality of the Debt Limit Statute, 31 U.S.C. § 3101

. Williams alleges on appeal violations of the Fourteenth Amendment Public Debt Clause, U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 4 , an d the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause, U.S.
Const. amend. V . H e seeks relief declaring the Debt Limit Statute unconstitutional and enjoining the Secretary from enforcing the statute

. Because Williams fails to allege plausible factual allegations to es tablish the constitutional minimum requirements for Article III standing, either in the first amended complaint filed with the district court or in his proposed amended complaint filed with this Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1653, we affirm the decision of the d istrict court dismissing Williams’s claims for lack of standing. We also affirm the district court’s order denying Williams’s motion to

am end his first amended complaint and deny Williams’s motion to amend his complaint on appeal.

I. BACKGROUND

This case is an outgrowth of the continuing debate surrounding the statutory limit on U.S. debt. The Debt Limit Statute, 31 U.S.C. § 3101(b)

, imposes an upper limit on “[t]he
face amount of obligations issued under this chapter and the
face amount of obli gations whose principal and interest are guaranteed by the United States Government

. ” The United States first instituted a ceiling on the federal debt in 1917 to accompany the United States’ entrance into World War I. See3

D. Andrew Austin, Cong

. Research Serv

. , The Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases 2

- 3 ( 2008), http://fpc.state.gov/ documents/organization/105193.pdf; see also Act of Sept. 24, 1917, Pub. L. No. 65

- 43, 4 0 Stat. 288 (codified as amended at 31 U.S.C. § 3101)

. The original purpose of the Debt Limit Statute was to increase the Treasury Department’s flexibility

to manage the government’s financial obligations. See Austin, supra , at 3; see also Josh Hazan, Unconstitutional Debt Ceilings , 103 Geo. L.J. Online 29, 30

- 32 (2014). Yet
both i n 2011 and in 2013, congressional budgeting disputes threatened default on U.S. obligations as outstanding debt broached the debt ceiling. See Hazan, supra , at 29

- 30. Following the 2011 impasse, “U.S. government debt was downgraded, the stock market fell

, measures of volatility jumped, and credit risk spreads widened noticeably

. . . .”
U.S

. Dep’t of th e Treasury, The Potential Macroeconomic Effect of Debt Ceiling Brinksmanship 1 (2013), https:// www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/ Report

- on

Macroeconomic

- Effect

- of

- Debt

- Ceiling

Brinkmanship.aspx. Likewise, the 2013 dispute “further eroded confidence in the United States government, and wounded the already fragile economy.” Chad DeVeaux, The Fourth Zone of Presidential Power: Analyzing the Debt

Ceiling Standoffs Through the Prism of Youngstown Steel , 47 Conn. L. Rev. 395, 407 (2014). In the wake of these political impasses, Congress presently has suspended the Debt Limit Statute through March 15, 2017. See Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, Pub. L. No. 114

- 74, § 901(a) , 129 Stat. 584, 620

.

Williams holds various Treasury

- issued public debt instruments, including “savings bonds and Treasury bills, notes, bonds, and TIPS [Treasury Inflation Indexed Securities] of various durations (4

- weeks, 13

- weeks, 26

- week s, 52

- week[s], 3

- years, 5

- years, 7

- years, [and] 30

- years).” J.A. 20 ¶ 39. Seeking a judicial solution to what he4

views as the perpetual “political conflict regarding the inevitable need to raise the debt limit,” J.A. 6 ¶ 2, on February 7, 2014, Williams filed suit , challenging the constitutionality of the Debt Limit Statute, against the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury (collectively, the “Treasury Department”) . Before the Treasury Department lodged a responsive plead ing or Rule 12(b) motion, Williams filed a first amended complaint as

- of

- right on March 5, 2014. Cf. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1). The first amended complaint sought a judgment declaring the Debt Limit Statute unconstitutional and a permanent injunction proh ibiting the Treasury Department from “relying upon, invoking, or enforcing” the statute. J.A. 34.

Williams assert e d t hree alleged constitutional infirmities
in the Debt Limit Statute before the district court . First, he
claim ed that the statute violat es the Public Debt Clause, U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 4, which states , in relevant part :

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

See J.A. 21 ¶ 42(A); see also Amended Complaint Filed on Appeal Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1653 ¶¶ 65(A), 66, Williams v.
Lew

, No. 15

- 5065 (D.C. Cir. May 14, 2015) [hereinafter Pr. Am. Compl.]

. Second, Williams allege d a violation of the
Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause based on the Treasury D epartment’s “arbitrary enforcement” of the Debt
Limit Statute. J.A. 21 ¶ 42(A); see also Pr. Am. Compl. ¶

¶ 65(A), 66. Finally, Williams made a separation

- of

- powers5

argument that the Debt Limit Statute “prevent[s] the Executive from carrying out sworn Arti cle II § 3 duties to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’” J.A. 21 ¶ 42(B); see also Pr. A m . Compl. ¶ 65(B)

.

T he Treasury Department moved to dismiss Williams’s first amended complaint under Rul e 12(b)(1) for lack of standing. Williams the n moved under Rule 15(a)(2) for leave to file a second amended complaint, in part “to clarify his claims [and to] further explain and develop the basis for his standing

. . . .” J.A. 96. The district court denied Williams’s motion to amend without explan ation via minute order on May 18, 2014. On January 6, 2015, the district court granted the Treasury Department’s motion to dismiss, concluding that Williams lacked standing to pursue his claims in federal court.
Williams now appeals from the district cou rt’s denial of his motion to amend and from the order dismissing his claims for lack of standing. Williams also moves this Court for leave to amend his complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1653. Request T o Allow Filing of an Amended Complaint & Alternative Motion
T o Vacate, Reverse, & Remand, Williams v. Lew , No. 15

- 5065 ( D.C. Cir. May 1, 2015). We have jurisdiction pursuant

to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

I I

. ANALYSIS

Williams makes only a fleeting reference in his opening brief, within a section ostensibly discussing his Public Debt Clause claim, to his separation

- of

- powers argument. Appellant ’ s Br. 15

- 16 (stating that the debt limit “ traps the Executive in an arbitrary ‘ trilemna ’ [sic] . . . [which] works a
structural constitutional violation ” ). Because he fails to develop that argument, or his standing to assert it, Williams
has therefore forfeited the claim. See Abdullah v. Obama

, 753 F.3d 193, 199 (D.C. Cir. 2014) (A “ bare and conclusory6

assertion ” in the opening brief “ fail[s] to preserve t he
claim

. ” ); N.Y. Rehab. Care Mgmt., LLC v. NLRB , 506 F.3d 1070, 1076 (D.C. Cir. 2007) ( “ It is not enough merely to mention a possible argument in the most skeletal way, leaving
the court to do counsel ’ s work. ” ). The only remaining issues on appeal are: (1) whether the district court erred in denying Williams’s motion to amend the first amended complaint, and (2) whether Williams has Article III standing to bring his
claims in federal court. We affirm as to both

.

A. A NY E RROR IN THE D EN I AL OF W ILLIAMS ’ S M OT ION T O A MEND W AS H ARMLESS

Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2), when unable to do so as

of

- right, “a party may amend its pleading only with the opposing party’s written consent or the court’s leave. The court should freely give leave when justice so requires.” W e review a district court’s denial of a motion to amend a complaint for abuse of discretion. S ee Sierra Club v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers , 803 F.3d 31, 53 (D.C. Cir. 2015).
Under our case law it is an abuse of discretion for a district
court to den y leave to amend without providing a reasoned justification for the denial

. See Barkley v. U.S. Marshals
Serv. , 766 F.3d 25, 38 (D.C. Cir. 2014 ) (citing Foman v.
Davis , 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962)). In this case, the district
court denied Williams’s motion to file a second amended complaint in a minute order lacking any reasons for the
denial. Such an unsubstantiated order may amount to an abuse of discretion. Barkley , 766 F.3d at 38. However, this
omission of reasons is at worst harmless error.

Governing law permits litigants to amend their pleadings
“in

. . . appellate courts” to cure “[d]efective allegations of jurisdiction

. . . .” 28 U.S.C. § 1653. As noted above, Williams filed both a § 16 53 motion and an amended7

complaint (the “ Proposed Amended Complaint”) with this
Court. “Courts may deny a motion to amend a complaint as
futile

. . . if the proposed claim would not survive a motion to
dismiss.” James Madison Ltd. by Hecht v. Ludwig , 82 F.3d 1085, 1099 (D.C. Cir. 1996)

. Accordingly, b ecause we hold
that Williams’s Proposed A mended C omplaint fails to state a plausible basis for standing, we deny the pending § 1653
motion as futile and affirm the district court’ s minute order.
S ee 28 U.S.C. § 2111 ( A ppellate courts must disregard “errors or defects which do not affect the substantial rights of the parties

. ”)

.

B. W ILLIAMS L ACKS A RTICLE III S TANDING

1. Standard of Review

We review the district court’s standing determinations de

novo. See Food & Water Watch, Inc. v. Vilsack , 808 F.3d 905, 913 (D.C. Cir. 2015). “To survive a motion to dismiss for lack of standing, a complaint must state a plausible claim that the plaintiff has suffered an injury in fact fairly traceable
to the actions of th e defendant that is likely to be redressed by
a favorable decision on the merits.” Humane Soc’y v. Vilsack

, 797 F.3d 4, 8 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555, 560

- 61 (1992)). While we accept all
“well

- pleaded factual all egations as true and draw all reasonable inferences from those allegations in the plaintiff’s favor,” we do not assume the truth of legal conclusions. Arpaio v. Obama , 797 F.3d 11, 19 ( D.C. Cir. 2015) . Neither do we accept “threadbare recitals of a cause of action ’s elements, supported by mere conclusory statements.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 663 (2009).8

2. Williams Does Not Allege a Cognizable Injury

- In

- Fact

The operative complaint before the district court was Williams’s first amended complaint. See J.A. 2 . This complaint clearly fails to allege a plausible basis for standing.
Williams asserts only that he holds United States public debt and “avers direct, individual, concrete, and certainly impending harm from the unconstitutional debt ceiling
statute.” J.A. 20 ¶ 39; cf. id. at 5

- 6 ¶ 1 (noting the “threat[] [of] Defendants’ arbitrary default on Plaintiff’s securities”);
id. at 27 ¶ 50 (alleging “concrete and certainly impending harm”)

. Because such conclusory statements and legal
conclusions are insuffi cient to state a plausible basis for standing, Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 663, Williams can only avoid
dismissal if the Proposed Amended Complaint accompanying his § 1653 motion with this Court cures the defect, see James Madison Ltd. by Hecht , 82 F.3d at 1099. W e therefore focus
our attention on the Proposed Amended Complaint.

In that complaint

, Williams alleges past, current, and
future harms from the Debt Limit Statute to his public debt holdings. Specifically , Williams discusses how the market devalued publi c debt as a result of the 2013 “default crisis,” including, for example, how “[o]n October 15, 2013, interest
rates on commercial interbank loans were lower than interest rates on Treasury bills.” Pr. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 30

- 35. As to current harms, Williams cl aims that the Debt Limit Statute degrades the low

- risk profile of his investments and devalues
those investments. Id. ¶¶ 2, 21, 30, 41, 44. Such harms supposedly worsen when the Treasury Department resorts to “extraordinary measures” following breach of the debt ceiling. Id. ¶¶ 4, 45. Williams also alleges that he suffered
and continues to suffer noneconomic harms in the form of “increasing[] worry and concern” about his public debt9

investments. Id. ¶¶ 2, 21. Finally, Williams avers to “certainly

- impe nding” future economic and noneconomic
harms from the full enforcement of the Debt Limit Statute

— i.e., an actual default on United States debts. Id. ¶¶ 4, 45, 50.

Williams ’s allegations of past injury are irrelevant to the standing inquiry in this case. We stated in Arpaio v. Obama that, where a plaintiff “seeks prospective declaratory and injunctive relief, he must establish an ongoing or future injury that is ‘certainly impending’; he may not rest on past injury.”
797 F.3d at 19. Williams seeks “a declaratory judgment that the debt ceiling statute is unconstitutional” along with a permanent injunction prohibiting enforcement of the statute

. Pr. Am. Compl. at 60

- 61 . H e therefore must rely on concret e and particular current or future injuries

- in

- fact to establish standing.

Unfortunately for Williams, his claims of future injuries are entirely conjectural

. It is indisputable that the United States has never defaulted on its debt obligations. See
Wil liams v. Lew , 77 F. Supp. 3d 129, 132

- 33 (D.D.C. 2015) ; Appellees’ Br. 3

. Further , as the district court correctly noted, any future injury that Williams might suffer follows from a n extended chain o f contingencies. Williams v. Lew , 77 F. Supp. 3d at 133

. In particular : (1) federal debt must reach the statutory ceiling; (2) the Treasury Department must exhaust any “extraordinary measures” to avoid a default; (3) the United States must be unable to pay its obligations with “cash on hand” in a given day; ( 4) payment on Williams’s securities must come due during such time; and (5) Williams must
continue to hold those securities. Id. Furthermore, Congress must fail to enact legislation suspending or increasing the debt limit despite an impending breach of t he statutory ceiling

— something it has done on over seventy occasions since 1962

. See Austin

, supra , at 8. “When considering any chain of10

allegations for standing purposes, we may reject as overly speculative those links which are predictions of future events (especially future actions to be taken by third parties)

. . . .” Arpaio , 797 F.3d at 21 (citation and internal quotation marks
omitt ed). Because Williams fails plausibly to allege that any future injuries are “ certainly impending to constitute injury in fact,” he cannot rely on such injuries to establish Article III standing. Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA , 133 S. Ct. 1138,
1147 (2013) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis in original).

Thus, in order to satisfy Article III’s standing requirements , Williams must put forth plausible allegations of current and ongoing injuries. A n analysis of the Proposed
Amended Complaint shows that Williams fails to meet this
standard. The crux of Williams’s argument is that the Debt Limit Statute degrades the risk profile of his public debt holdings and devalues those investments. To support this position, Williams cites in hi s briefs, but not in the c omplaint, a July 2015 report from the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) discu ssing the market effects of “debt limit impasses.” See U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office

, D EBT
LIMIT : Market Response to Recent Impasse s Underscores
Need To Consider Alternative Approaches (2015) [hereinafter
GAO Report]

, http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/671286.pdf.
T he GAO Report admittedly details numerous effects that the
2011 and 2013 debt limit impasse s had on U.S. financial
markets. F or example, investors avoided “at

- risk” Treasury securities; interest rates on “at

- risk” securities rose; the liquidity of “at

- risk” securities declined; investors substituted
“at

- risk” Treasury securities for other investments; and
investors refused to ac cept “at

- risk” Treasury securities as
collateral. Id. at 12

- 28.11

The Court may take judicial notice of the GAO Report.
See Fed. R. Evid. 201(b); see also Farah v. Esquire Magazine , 736 F.3d 528, 534 (D.C. Cir. 2013) (“And, [i]n determining whether a complaint states a claim, the court may consider the facts alleged in the complaint, documents attached thereto or incorporated therein, and matters of which it may take judicial notice .” (alteration in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)). However, the GAO Report does not make Williams’s alleged current injuries plausible. To the contrary, the report suggests that prior debt
limit impasses only affected “at

- risk” Treasury securities, i.e., holdings with payments due during the impasse

. See, e.g.

, GAO Report 13 (“Market participants said that investors were primarily concerned with shorter

- term Treasury bills that were maturing during this time [late

- October throu gh mid

November 2013].”) ; U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, GAO Highlights: Highlights of GAO

- 15

- 476, A Report to the Congress 1 (2015), http://www.gao.gov/assets/680/ 671287.pdf (“During the 2013 debt limit impasse, investors reported taking the unprecede nted action of systematically avoiding certain Treasury securities

— those that matured around the dates when the [Treasury Department] projected it
would exhaust

. . . extraordinary measures

. . . .”)

. Williams’s current investment holdings are not “at

- ris k.” As the Treasury Department states, the Debt Limit Statute is suspended until March 15, 2017. See Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, Pub. L.
No. 114

- 74, § 901(a). Any effect that the Debt Limit
Statute’s specter may have on Williams’s current public debt holdings is therefore speculative and made no less so by the allegations in the Proposed Amended Complaint. See Lujan

, 504 U.S. at 560 (injury

- in

- fact cannot be “conjectural” or “hypothetical”). Nor is it clear that Williams’s securities will
become “at

- risk” in the future

. Because Congress has suspended the Debt Limit Statute, Williams must rely on rote12

conjecture that another debt limit impasse will occur once the suspension ends

. See id.

Furthermore, Williams’s alleged noneconomic injuries do not provide a plausible basis for standing. For the reasons stated above, any current harm to Williams’s investments is speculative, and he fails to allege future harms that are certainly impending. The Court can not exercise jurisdiction based on “worr[ies] and concern[s]” that lack a reasoned
basis. Pr. Am. Compl. ¶ 2; see Clapper , 133 S. Ct. at 1151 (“[R]espondents cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.”).

3. Williams Separately Lacks Standing To
Pursue His Due Process Claims

Williams asserts a Fifth Amendment due process violation based on the Treasury Department’s “arbitrary”
enforcement of the Debt Limit Statute. Pr. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 5, 11, 21, 46. In particular, Williams alleges that the Treasury Department cannot prioritize payments to holders of public debt in the event of default, id. ¶ 5, and it “has no rational method to protect Treasury bondholders, insure Certificate of Indebtedness liquidity, or honor promises to repay the TSP G Fund in the certain event of default,” id. ¶ 46. This claim turns entirely on hypothetical future injury from the arbitrary prioritization of Treasury funds and therefore fails plausibly to allege a cognizable injury

- in

- fact. Lujan , 504 U.S. at 560;

s ee also Williams v. Lew , 77 F. Supp. 3d at 133 n.4 (noting
that “no

. . . plan or policy for prioritizing debt payment s has even been formed” by the Treasury Department)

.13

4. The Court Need Not Reach the Treasury Department’s Remaining Arguments

The Treasury Department also argues that we should dismiss Williams’s claims as “generalized grievances” that
“do not state an A rticle III case or controversy.” Lujan , 504
U.S. at 574. We need not parse the line between a “generalized grievance” and a “concrete, though widely shared” injury

- in

- fact. FEC v. Akins , 524 U.S. 11, 23

- 24 (1998). Williams fails to allege plausible fac ts to establish the “irreducible constitutional minimum of standing,” Lujan , 504 U.S. at 560, thereby obviating the generalized grievance issue. For the same reason, we find it unnecessary to revisit our prior cases discussing the availability, or lack th ereof, of “bondholder standing.” See Reuss v. Balles , 584 F.2d 461,
469

- 70 n.29 (D.C. Cir. 1978); cf. Riegle v. FOMC

, 656 F.2d 873, 876 (D.C. Cir. 1981); Comm. for Monetary Reform v. Bd. of Govs. of Fed. Reserve Sys. , 766 F.2d 538, 540 (D.C. Cir. 1985)

.

We therefore affirm the district court’s dismissal of Williams’s claims for lack of standing.

C. W ILLIAMS ’ S F ACIAL C HALLENGE TO THE D EBT L IMIT S TATUTE D OES N OT P ROVIDE AN I NDEPENDENT B ASIS FOR S TANDING

In the alternative, Williams cryptically alleges that h is facial challenge to the Debt Limit Statute is sufficient to confer Article III standing. Williams’s argument is itself facially suspect, and it is also unavailing under the Supreme
Court’s and our case law.

As the Supreme Court stated explicitly in Lujan , the three elements of standing

— i.e., injury

- in

- fact, traceability, and14

redressability

— encompass “the irreducible constitutional minimum” under Article III. 504 U.S. at 560. Absent any one of these requirements, federal courts lack jurisdiction to adjudicate a plaintiff’s claims. As the Court state d in Bond v.
United States , 564 U.S. 211, 225 (2011)

, “ If

. . . a litigant who
commences suit fails to show actual or imminent harm that is concrete and particular, fairly traceable to the conduct complai ned of, and likely to be redressed by a favorable decision, the Federal Ju diciary cannot hear the claim.” By contrast, “the threshold for facial challenges is a species of third party ( jus tertii ) standing, which

. . . [is] a prudential
doctrine and not o ne mandated by Article III of the
Constitution.” City of Chicago v. Morales , 527 U.S. 41, 55 n.22 (1999) (Stevens, J., joined by Souter and Ginsburg, JJ.); see also LaRoque v. Holder , 650 F.3d 777, 791

- 92 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (stating the “prudential principle” limiting third

- party stand ing); Anderson v. Holder , 647 F.3d 1165, 1172 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (“The traditional rule is that a person to whom a statute may constitutionally be applied may not challenge that statute on the ground that it may conceivably be applied unconstitutionally to o thers in situations not before the Court.” (citation and inte rnal quotation marks omitted)).

Because, as demonstrated above, Williams fails to allege plausible facts to establish the “irreducible constitutional minimum” requirements for Article III standi ng under Lujan

, 504 U.S. at 560, the district court also properly dismissed his facial challenge to the Debt Limit Statute. Williams cites Brown v. Bd. of Educ. , 347 U.S. 483 (1954), for the proposition that a facial violation of a constitutional interest
confer s jurisdiction on the federal courts. But Williams
misreads th at case . The plaintiffs in Brown each suffered an injury

- in

- fact

— “they [were] denied admission to schools
attend ed by white children under laws requiring or permitting segregation according to race.” Id. at 488. “This segregation15

was alleged to deprive the plaintiffs of the equal protection of
the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id. Furthermore, the Suprem e Court has expressly disavowed the theory that Williams advances here ; “an asserted right to have the Government act in accordance with law is not sufficient, standing alone, to confer jurisdiction on a federal court.” Allen v. Wright , 468 U.S. 737, 754 (1984), abrogated on other grounds by Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components,
Inc. , 134 S. Ct. 1377 (2014).

We recognize that the contours of Article III standing with respect to facial constitutional challenges may be imprecise. Compare Los Angeles Police Dep’t v. United Reporting Pub. Corp. , 528 U.S. 32, 38

- 40 (1999) ( citing cases in which the Court permitted facial challenges but reaffirming
the “traditional rule” limiting such claims )

, and United States v. Szabo , 760 F.3d 997, 1003

- 04 (9th Cir. 2014) (“While an overbreadth challenge may be brought where a statute is constitutional as applied to the individual challenging it, such challenges are exceptions to the ordinary standing requirements, and are not ‘casually employed.’”), with
Planne d Parenthood of Wis., Inc. v. Schimel , 806 F.3d 908, 910 (7th Cir. 2015) (noting that “the Supreme Court has entertained both broad facial challenges and pre

- enforcement

as

- applied challenges to abortion laws brought by physicians on behalf of their patien ts” (quoting Isaacson v. Horne , 716 F.3d 1213, 1221 (9th Cir. 2013)))

, and Dickerson v. Napolitano , 604 F.3d 732, 743 n.11 (2d Cir. 2010) (“One potential case where an as

- applied challenge may not be permitted

. . . but a facial challenge still conceivably could be permissible would be a challenge to a law that had not yet been, but potentially could be, applied unconstitutionally to the pa rty challenging it.”)

. See generally Toghil v.
Commonwealth , 768 S.E.2d 674, 678 (Va. 2015) (requiring an appellant making a facial challenge to “show[]

. . . that the16

statute in question is unconstitutional as applied to him and that the statute in quest ion would not be constitutional in any context” and citing federal court cases).

But we know of no case stating that a facial challenge to the constitutionality of a statute itself suffices to establish standing, nor do we adopt such a holding . U nless there is an
actual Article III “C ase []” or “C ontrovers [ y ]” before us, we lack jurisdiction. See U.S. Const. a rt. III, § 2, cl. 1; Lujan

, 504 U.S. at 559

- 60 ; Grocery Mfrs. Ass’n v. EPA , 693 F.3d 169, 174 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (“The application of the standing
d octrine

. . . ensures that federal courts act only within their constitutionally prescribed role: resolving ‘Cases’ and ‘Controversies,’ those disputes which are appropriately resolved through the judicial process.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted))

. Because Williams does not make this constitutionally mandated showing , w e therefore affirm
the district court ’s dismissal of his claim that the Debt Limit Statute is facially unconstitutional

.

I II

. CONCLUSION

We express no opinion on the merits of Williams’s
constitutional claims. For the reasons stated herein, the Court
affirms both the district court’s order denying Williams’s motion to amend his complaint and the order dismissing
Williams’s claims for lack of standing

. Williams’s motion under 28 U.S.C. § 1653 to amend his complaint on appeal is accordingly denied.

So ordered.