Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-235_n7ip.pdf
Page Number: 37.0

8 

FDA v. ALLIANCE FOR HIPPOCRATIC MEDICINE 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

II 
I am particularly doubtful of associational-standing doc-
trine because the Court has never attempted to reconcile it 
with  the  traditional  understanding  of  the  judicial  power.
Instead,  the  Court  departed  from  that  traditional  under-
standing  without  explanation,  seemingly  by  accident.    To 
date, the Court has provided only practical reasons for its 
doctrine. 

For over a century and a half, the Court did not have a
separate standing doctrine for associations.  As far as I can 
tell,  the  Court  did  not  expressly  contemplate  such  a  doc-
trine  until  the  late  1950s.    In  NAACP  v.  Alabama  ex  rel. 
Patterson, 357 U. S. 449 (1958), the Court permitted an as-
sociation to assert the constitutional rights of its members
to prevent the disclosure of its membership lists.  While the 
Court allowed the NAACP to raise a challenge on behalf of
its members, it also acknowledged that the NAACP had ar-
guably  faced  an  injury  of  its  own.  Id.,  at  459–460.    The 
Court, however, soon discarded any notion that an associa-
tion needed to have its own injury, creating our modern as-
sociational-standing  doctrine.  In  National  Motor  Freight 
Traffic Assn., Inc. v. United States, 372 U. S. 246 (1963) (per 
curiam),  the  Court  suggested  that  an  uninjured  industry 
group had standing to challenge a tariff schedule on behalf 
of its members.  Id., at 247.  The Court offered no explana-
tion for how that theory of standing comported with the tra-
ditional  understanding  of  the  judicial  power.    In  fact,  the 
Court’s entire analysis consisted of a one-paragraph order 
denying rehearing.  Since then, however, the Court has par-
roted that “[e]ven in the absence of injury to itself, an asso-
ciation may have standing solely as the representative of its 
members.”  Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 511 (1975) (em-
phasis added; citing National Motor Freight Traffic Assn., 
372 U. S. 246); see also, e.g., Automobile Workers, 477 U. S., 
at 281.  The Court has gone so far as to hold that a state