Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf
Page Number: 76

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

29 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

does not let the political system, with its mechanisms of ac-
countability,  operate  as  normal.    It  makes  itself  the  deci-
sionmaker  on,  of  all  things,  federal  student-loan  policy. 
And  then,  perchance,  it  wonders  why  it  has  only  com-
pounded the “sharp debates” in the country?  Ibid. 

III 
From  the  first  page  to  the  last,  today’s  opinion  departs
from the demands of judicial restraint.  At the behest of a 
party  that  has  suffered  no  injury,  the  majority  decides  a 
contested public policy issue properly belonging to the po-
litically  accountable  branches  and  the  people  they  repre-
sent.  In saying so, and saying so strongly, I do not at all 
“disparage[ ]” those who disagree.  Ante, at 26.  The majority
is right to make that point, as well as to say that “[r]eason-
able minds” are found on both sides of this case.  Ante, at 
25.  And  there  is  surely  nothing  personal  in  the  dispute 
here.  But  Justices  throughout  history  have  raised  the 
alarm when the Court has overreached—when it has “ex-
ceed[ed] its proper, limited role in our Nation’s governance.” 
Supra, at 1.  It would have been “disturbing,” and indeed 
damaging, if they had not.  Ante, at 25.  The same is true in 
our own day.

The majority’s opinion begins by distorting standing doc-
trine to create a case fit for judicial resolution.  But there is 
no  such  case  here,  by  any  ordinary  measure.  The  Secre-
tary’s  plan  has  not  injured  the  plaintiff-States,  however 
much  they  oppose  it.  And  in  that  respect,  Missouri  is  no 
different from any of the others.  Missouri does not suffer 
any harm from a revenue loss to MOHELA, because the two
entities  are  legally  and  financially  independent.    And 
MOHELA has chosen not to sue—which of course it could 
have.  So no proper party is before the Court.  A court acting
like a court would have said as much and stopped.

The opinion ends by applying the Court’s made-up major-