1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
JAMES E. MCMILLAN III, Plaintiff,

v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BOARD OF ELECTIONS, Board. Civil Action No. 1:14-cv-00939 (BAH) Judge Beryl A. Howell

MEMORANDUM OPINION The plaintiff, James E. Mc Millan III, proceeding pro se , claims to be the “party head” of a political party that has appeared on the ballot in the State of New York in past elections for Governor and Mayor of New York City. Compl. at 1, Ex. B, ECF No. 1-1. He initiated this lawsuit against the District of Columbia Board of Elections (“the Board”), requesting a change in the name of a slate of affiliated candidates (the “Slate”) for electi on to the District of Columbia’s Democratic Party committee even though that el ection occurred over two months before the filing of the Complaint. The Board has moved to dismiss the Complaint on the grounds that the plaintiff lacks standing and, altern atively, fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.
See Def.’s Mot to Dismiss at 1, ECF No. 6. 1 For the reasons set forth below, the Board’s motion to dismiss is granted.

1 The Board has moved pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) but dismissal for lack of standing is a “defect of subject matter jurisdiction” and, therefore, is properly brought pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1). Haase v. Sessions , 835 F.2d 902, 906 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (“the defect of standing is a defect in subject matter jurisdiction”).2 I. BACKGROUND The facts in this case are not in material dis pute. The Board is in charge of administering elections of “members and offici als of local committees of politic al parties.” D.C. Code § 1- 1001.01(4). On November 18, 2013, the local committee of the D.C. Democratic Party, pursuant to D.C. Code Ann. § 1-1001.10(a)(1), issued a part y plan for the April 2014 primary election that provided for the selection of Democratic Part y committee members by slate. Def’s Mem. Supp. Mot. Dismiss (“Def.’s Mem.”) at 3, ECF No. 6-1. A slate enables candidates to affiliate with one another by running on a common platform if the group of candidate s secures a requisite number of signatures and meets other minimum requirements. See 3 DCMR § 1701. The Slate at issue initially chose the name “DC for Progress, Raise the Wage.” Def.’s Mem. at 3. After being informed that the name was too long to print on the ballot, the Slate approached the plaintiff, who apparently leads the “Rent is Too Damn High” party in New York, and requested to use the name in the D.C. Demo cratic Party committee election. Compl. at 1. The Director of the D.C. Board of Elections expr essed concern that people, specifically seniors, might be upset with the D.C. Slate’s chosen name. Compl., Ex. A., ECF No. 1-1. The Slate thereafter agreed to change the name of the Slate to the “Rent is Too Darn High.” Id. According to the Complaint, thirty candida tes ran under the “Rent is Too Darn High” Slate name in the April 1, 2014 election for s eats on the Democratic Party committee in the District of Columbia and five were elected. Comp l. at 2. Over two mont hs after the election, the plaintiff filed this lawsuit seeking, among other thi ngs, to change the Slate’ s name to the “Rent is Too Damn High.” Id. at 3.3 II. LEGAL STANDARD “‘Federal courts are courts of limited ju risdiction,’ possessi ng ‘only that power authorized by Constitution and statute.’” Gunn v. Minton , 133 S. Ct. 1059 (2013) (quoting Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am ., 511 U.S. 375, 377 (1994)). Indeed, federal courts are “forbidden . . . fr om acting beyond our authority,” NetworkIP, LLC v. FCC , 548 F.3d 116, 120 (D.C. Cir. 2008), and, therefore, have “an affirmative obligation ‘to consider whether the constitutional and statutory authority ex ist for us to hear each dispute.’” James Madison Ltd. by Hecht v. Ludwig , 82 F.3d 1085, 1092 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (quoting Herbert v. National Academy of Sciences , 974 F.2d 192, 196 (D.C. Cir. 1992)). For th is reason, “the [p]laintiff’s factual allegations in the complaint . . . will bear closer scrutiny in resolving a 12(b)(1) motion than in resolving a 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim.” Grand Lodge of Fraternal Order of Police v. Ashcroft , 185 F. Supp. 2d 9, 13–14 (D.D.C. 2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). When the purported lack of jurisdiction stems from a lack of standing, however, the court “must assume that [the plaintiff] states a valid legal claim.” Info. Handling Servs., Inc. v. Def. Automated Printing Servs. , 338 F.3d 1024, 1029 (D.C. Cir. 2003). The proponent of jurisdiction bears the burden of proving that it exists, Khadr v. United States , 529 F.3d 1112, 1115 (D.C. Cir. 2008), and while “the distri ct court may consider materials ou tside the pleadings,” it must “still accept all of the factual allegations in [the] complaint as true.” Jerome Stevens Pharm., Inc. v.
FDA , 402 F.3d 1249, 1253 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
III. DISCUSSION In this case, the plaintiff’s Complaint re ferences the “First Amendment’s Free Speech and Establishment Clauses” and goes on to allege that the “candidates have been denied the right to use the name of ‘The Rent is Too DAMN High,’” as the name of their Slate. Compl. at 1.4 The plaintiff “request[s] the word ‘Damn’ [be] granted to the DC Gr oup Slate” and “the DC Group Slate name be changed to indicate their na me of choice (The Rent is Too Damn High) on the Board of Elections in (D.C.).” Id. at 3. The Board contends th at the plaintiff lacks standing to pursue this claim. Def.’s Mem. at 5-7. The Court agrees. Article III of the Constitution restricts the power of federal courts to hear only “Cases” and “Controversies.” U.S. CONST. art. III § 2. “The doctrine of standing gives meaning to these constitutional limits by ‘identify[ing] those disp utes which are appropriately resolved through the judicial process.’” Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus , 134 S. Ct. 2334, 2341 (2014) (alterations in original) (quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992)). The Supreme Court has explained, “the irre ducible constitutional minimu m of standing contains three elements.” Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. at 560. The three-pr onged standing test consists of the following: First, the plaintiff must have suffe red an “injury in fact,” i.e., “an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Id. (citations and internal quotat ion marks omitted). Second, there must be “a causal connection betw een the injury and the conduct complained of,” i.e., the injury alleged must be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the Board. Id. Finally, it must be likely that the injury will be re dressed by a favorable decision. Id. at 561. When declaratory or injunctive relief is sought, a plaintiff “must show he is suffering an ongoing injury or faces an immediate threat of [future] injury.” Dearth v. Holder , 641 F.3d 499, 501 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (citing City of Los Angeles v. Lyons , 461 U.S. 95, 105 (1983)). The plaintiff fails to meet any element of this three-pronged standing test. First, the plaintiff has not suffered an injury in fact. The plaintiff concedes: (1) he is “not a resident of the District of Co lumbia,” Pl.’s Opp’n to Def.’s Mo t. to Dismiss (“Pl.’s Opp’n”) at5 1; (2) he “did not attempt to re gister” to vote in the election for which he seeks the Slate’s name change, id. ; and (3) he was not among the thirty-membe rs of the Slate that ran for election, id. at 2. Accordingly, the plaintiff has not suffered a lega lly cognizable injury in fact because he is a non-resident who did not participate in the elect ion and, thus, he was not precluded from running under the slate name of his choice nor was he impacted by the electi on or its results. See Def.’s Mem. at 6 (“The instant case presents a standing issue where a nonresident a sserts an injury to a political party slate of which he is not a member.”); see also Sierra Club v. Morton , 405 U.S. 727, 735 (1972) (“[T]he ‘injury in fact ’ test requires more than an in jury to a cognizable interest. It requires that the party seeking re view be himself among the injured.”); Bd. of Elections for
D.C. v. Democratic Cent. Comm. , 300 A.2d 725, 727 (D.C. 1973) (same). 2 Despite conceding that he was not a candida te or registered vot er in the 2014 D.C. Democratic Party election, the plaintiff insists that he has standing to bring this claim. In a convoluted series of statements, th e plaintiff asserts that he “rep resent[s] the contingenticy [sic] of the ‘Rent is Too Damn High Party’ in the Dist rict of Columbia and th e party’s slate for the 30 candidates (members)” that did r un in the election and also “provi de[s] leadership and direction . . . as the leader of the Rent is Too Damn High Part y.” Pl.’s Opp’n at 1-2. As the Board correctly points out, the plaintiff “has conflated permission to use his party’s name with having a political party contingent in the Di strict of Columbia.” Def.’s Reply in Supp. of Mot. to Dismiss (“Def.’s Reply”) at 1, ECF No. 9. The plaintiff “has proffered no evidence that the Democratic Party

2 The plaintiff’s reliance on a case filed four years ago in th e Eastern District of New York is unavailing. In that case, the plaintiff challenged New York State and New Yo rk City Boards of election for removing “the word ‘Damn’ from the [plaintiff’s] party’s name.” McMillan v. New York State Bd. of Elections , No. 10-CV-2502 JG VVP, 2010 WL 4065434, at *1 (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 15, 2010) aff’d , 449 F. App’x 79 (2d Cir. 2011). Even if the plaintiff had standing to bring his claims in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of New Yo rk as an eligible candidate for the “Rent is Too High” Party in the elections at issu e in that case, this circumstance has no bearing on his standing in this case. By contra st to factual circumstance in the McMillan case, the plaintiff was not eligible for and did not seek to run under the Slate name “The Rent is Too Damn High” in the April Democratic Party primary election in the District of Columbia. Id. at *1-2.6 slate at issue intended to be a cont ingent of his political party.” Id. Indeed, the fact that the Slate felt the need to ask the plainti ff if it could use the name weighs against the contention that the Slate had any ongoing affiliation with the plaint iff and his political pa rty in New York. Without an injury, the plaintiff has no standing to pursue the instant matter. In any event, the plaintiff could not satisfy th e remaining two-prongs of the sta nding test. The Slate agreed to change their name to the “Rent is Too Darn High,” thereby severing any causation between the plaintiff’s perceived injury and the Board’s suggestion that the Sl ate forego using the plaintiff’s party’s name. See Compl., Ex. A. Finally, the plaintiff falls far short of meeting the third standing requirement of redressability. This action comes too late to redress any injury that may have attended the Board’s suggestion to alter the proposed Slate name of the “Ren t is Too Damn High.” As a result, whether the Board should have allowed the us e of that name is immaterial. The plaintiff does not contest that the Slate at issu e disbanded after the April 2014 election, Def.’s Mem. at 2, over two months prior to the filing of the plaintiff’s Complaint. See generally Compl. The dissolution of the Slate, as th e Board points out, makes the “ likel[ihood]” that the plaintiff’s putative injury will be “redressed by a favorable decision” zero. See Def.’s Mem. at 6 (citing Lujan , 504 U.S. at 560-61). Moreover, even assuming arguendo that the plaintiff had standing, in so far as the Complaint seeks declaratory and/or injunctive relief, the case is moot because the Slate has disbanded and has demonstrated no intent to use th e plaintiff’s party’s name in a future election. See, e.g. , Chafin v. Chafin , 133 S. Ct. 1017, 1023 (2013) (“There is . . . no case or controversy, and a suit becomes moot, ‘when the issues pres ented are no longer live or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome.’” (quoting Already, LLC v. Nike, Inc. , 568 U.S. —, —7 , 132 S. Ct. 721, 726 (2013))); Mykonos v. United States , — F. Supp. 2d —, 2014 WL 3585323, at *3 (D.D.C. July 22, 2014) (“[A] federal court has no authority to gi ve opinions upon moot questions.”).
IV. CONCLUSION For the foregoing reasons, the plaintiff lacks standing to pursue his claim. Accordingly, the Board’s motion to dismiss is granted, pursuant to Federal Rule of Ci vil Procedure 12(b)(1), and the Complaint is dismissed. An order consistent with this Memorandum Opinion will be contemporaneously entered. Date: December 9, 2014

__________________________ BERYL A. HOWELL United States District Judge