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CLINTON v. CITY OF NEW YORK

Opinion of Scalia, J.

II

Not only must we be satisﬁed that we have statutory juris-
diction to hear this case; we must be satisﬁed that we have
jurisdiction under Article III.
“To meet the standing re-
quirements of Article III, ‘[a] plaintiff must allege personal
injury fairly traceable to the defendant’s allegedly unlawful
conduct and likely to be redressed by the requested relief.’ ”
Raines, 521 U. S., at 818, quoting Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S.
737, 751 (1984).

In the ﬁrst action before us, appellees Snake River Potato
Growers, Inc. (Snake River) and Mike Cranney, Snake Riv-
er’s Director and Vice-Chairman, challenge the constitution-
ality of the President’s cancellation of § 968 of the Taxpayer
Relief Act of 1997. The Snake River appellees have stand-
ing, in the Court’s view, because § 968 gave them “the equiv-
alent of a statutory ‘bargaining chip,’ ” and “[b]y depriving
them of their statutory bargaining chip, the cancellation
inﬂicted a sufﬁcient likelihood of economic injury to estab-
lish standing under our precedents.” Ante, at 432.
It is
unclear whether the Court means that deprivation of a
“bargaining chip” itself sufﬁces for standing, or that such
deprivation sufﬁces in the present case because it creates
a likelihood of economic injury. The former is wrong as a
matter of law, and the latter is wrong as a matter of fact,
on the facts alleged.

For the proposition that “a denial of a beneﬁt in the bar-
gaining process” can sufﬁce for standing the Court relies in
a footnote, see ante, at 433, n. 22, on Northeastern Fla. Chap-
ter, Associated Gen. Contractors of America v. Jacksonville,
508 U. S. 656 (1993). There, an association of contractors
alleged that a city ordinance according racial preferences
in the award of city contracts denied its members equal
protection of the laws.
Id., at 658–659. The association’s
members had regularly bid on and performed city contracts,
and would have bid on designated set-aside contracts but for
Id., at 659. We held that the association had
the ordinance.