Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
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Cite as: 524 U. S. 11 (1998)

23

Opinion of the Court

to say that the legal logic which critically determined Rich-
ardson’s outcome is beside the point here.

The FEC’s strongest argument is its contention that this
lawsuit involves only a “generalized grievance.”
(Indeed, if
Richardson is relevant at all, it is because of its broad discus-
sion of this matter, see id., at 176–178, not its basic ration-
ale.) The FEC points out that respondents’ asserted harm
(their failure to obtain information) is one which is “ ‘shared
in substantially equal measure by all or a large class of citi-
zens.’ ” Brief for Petitioner 28 (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422
U. S. 490, 499 (1975)). This Court, the FEC adds, has often
said that “generalized grievance[s]” are not the kinds of
harms that confer standing. Brief for Petitioner 28; see also
Lujan, 504 U. S., at 573–574; Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S.
737, 755–756 (1984); Valley Forge Christian College v.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc.,
454 U. S. 464, 475–479 (1982); Richardson, supra, at 176–178;
Frothingham v. Mellon, decided with Massachusetts v. Mel-
lon, 262 U. S. 447, 487 (1923); Ex parte Levitt, 302 U. S. 633,
634 (1937) (per curiam). Whether styled as a constitutional
or prudential limit on standing, the Court has sometimes
determined that where large numbers of Americans suffer
alike, the political process, rather than the judicial process,
may provide the more appropriate remedy for a widely
shared grievance. Warth, supra, at 500; Schlesinger v. Re-
servists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208, 222 (1974);
Richardson, 418 U. S., at 179; id., at 188–189 (Powell, J., con-
curring); see also Flast, supra, at 131 (Harlan, J., dissenting).
The kind of judicial language to which the FEC points,
however, invariably appears in cases where the harm at issue
is not only widely shared, but is also of an abstract and in-
deﬁnite nature—for example, harm to the “common concern
for obedience to law.” L. Singer & Sons v. Union Paciﬁc
R. Co., 311 U. S. 295, 303 (1940); see also Allen, supra, at 754;
Schlesinger, supra, at 217. Cf. Lujan, supra, at 572–578
(injury to interest in seeing that certain procedures are fol-