Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-1314_3ea4.pdf
Page Number: 74

Cite as:  576 U. S. ____ (2015) 

3 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

directly by a governmental subunit’s complaint.  We have 
always resolved those questions in the context of a private
lawsuit  in  which  the  claim  or  defense  depends  on  the
constitutional  validity  of  action  by  one  of  the  governmen-
tal  subunits  that  has  caused  a  private  party  concrete 
harm.  That is why, for example, it took this Court over 50 
years  to  rule  upon  the  constitutionality  of  the  Tenure  of 
Office Act, passed in 1867.  If the law of standing had been 
otherwise,  “presumably  President  Wilson,  or  Presidents
Grant  and  Cleveland  before  him,  would  . . .  have  had 
standing,  and  could  have  challenged  the  law  preventing 
the  removal  of  a  Presidential  appointee  without  the  con-
sent  of  Congress.”  Raines  v.  Byrd,  521  U. S.  811,  828 
(1997).

We  do  not  have  to  look  far  back  in  the  United  States 
Reports  to  find  other  separation-of-powers  cases  which,  if
the  Arizona  Legislature’s  theory  of  standing  is  correct,
took an awfully circuitous route to get here.  In Zivotofsky 
v. Kerry, ante, p. ___, the President could have sued for an
injunction  against  Congress’s  attempted  “direct  usurpa-
tion”  of  his  constitutionally-conferred  authority  to  pro-
nounce on foreign relations.  Or in Wellness Int’l Network, 
Ltd.  v.  Sharif,  575  U. S.  ___  (2015),  a  Federal  District 
Judge  could  have  sought  a  declaratory  judgment  that  a 
bankruptcy  court’s  adjudicating  a  Stern  claim  improperly
usurped  his  constitutionally  conferred  authority  to  decide
cases  and  controversies.    Or  in  NLRB  v.  Noel  Canning, 
573 U. S. ___ (2014), the Senate could have sued the Pres-
ident,  claiming  a  direct  usurpation  of  its  prerogative  to 
advise on and consent to Presidential appointments.  Each 
of  these  cases  involved  the  allocation  of  power  to  one  or
more branches of a government; and we surely would have
dismissed suits arising in the hypothesized fashions.

We  have  affirmatively  rejected  arguments  for  jurisdic-
tion  in  cases  like  this  one.    For  example,  in  Raines,  521 
U. S.,  at  829–830,  we  refused  to  allow  Members  of  Con-