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FEDERAL ELECTION COMM’N v. AKINS

Opinion of the Court

Finally, the FEC argues that we should deny respondents
standing because this case involves an agency’s decision not
to undertake an enforcement action—an area generally not
subject to judicial review. Brief for Petitioner 23, 29.
In
Heckler, this Court noted that agency enforcement decisions
“ha[ve] traditionally been ‘committed to agency discretion,’ ”
and concluded that Congress did not intend to alter that tra-
dition in enacting the APA.
470 U. S., at 832; cf. 5 U. S. C.
§ 701(a) (courts will not review agency actions where “stat-
utes preclude judicial review,” or where the “agency action
is committed to agency discretion by law”). We deal here
with a statute that explicitly indicates the contrary.

In sum, respondents, as voters, have satisﬁed both pru-
dential and constitutional standing requirements. They
may bring this petition for a declaration that the FEC’s
dismissal of their complaint was unlawful. See 2 U. S. C.
§ 437g(a)(8)(A).

III

The second question presented in the FEC’s petition for
certiorari is whether an organization that otherwise satisﬁes
the Act’s deﬁnition of a “political committee,” and thus is
subject to its disclosure requirements, nonetheless falls out-
side that deﬁnition because “its major purpose” is not “the
nomination or election of candidates.” The question arises
because this Court, in Buckley, said:

“To fulﬁll the purposes of the Act [the term ‘political
committee’] need only encompass organizations that are
under the control of a candidate or the major purpose of
which is the nomination or election of a candidate.” 424
U. S., at 79.

The Court reiterated in Federal Election Comm’n v. Massa-
chusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U. S. 238, 252, n. 6 (1986):

“[A]n entity subject to regulation as a ‘political commit-
tee’ under the Act is one that is either ‘under the control