Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 79

524US1

Unit: $U72

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FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N v. AKINS

Scalia, J., dissenting

The Richardson opinion treated that as fairly included
within the taxpayer-standing question, or at least as plainly
indistinguishable from it:

“The respondent’s claim is that without detailed infor-
mation on CIA expenditures—and hence its activities—
he cannot intelligently follow the actions of Congress or
the Executive, nor can he properly fulﬁll his obliga-
tions as a member of the electorate in voting for candi-
dates seeking national ofﬁce.

“This is surely the kind of a generalized grievance
described in both Frothingham and Flast since the im-
pact on him is plainly undifferentiated and common to
Id., at 176–177 (citations
all members of the public.”
and internal quotation marks omitted) (emphasis added).

If Richardson left voter standing unaffected, one must mar-
vel at the unaccustomed ineptitude of the American Civil
Liberties Union Foundation, which litigated Richardson, in
not immediately reﬁling with an explicit voter-standing alle-
gation. Fairly read, and applying a fair understanding of its
important purposes, Richardson is indistinguishable from
the present case.

The Court’s opinion asserts that our language disapprov-
ing generalized grievances “invariably appears in cases
where the harm at issue is not only widely shared, but is also
of an abstract and indeﬁnite nature.” Ante, at 23.
“Often,”
the Court says, “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.’ ”
Ante, at 24.
If that is so—if concrete generalized grievances
(like concrete particularized grievances) are OK, and ab-
stract generalized grievances (like abstract particularized
grievances) are bad—one must wonder why we ever devel-
oped the superﬂuous distinction between generalized and
particularized grievances at all. But of course the Court is