Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-1314_3ea4.pdf
Page Number: 73.0

2 

ARIZONA STATE LEGISLATURE v. ARIZONA 

INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING COMM’N
 
SCALIA, J., dissenting 

wanton  assaults  and  from  the  daily  aggressions  of
party spirit. . . . 

“I am inclined to believe this practice of the Ameri-
can courts to be at once most favorable to liberty and 
to public order.  If the judge could only attack the leg-
islator  only  openly  and  directly,  he  would  sometimes 
be afraid to oppose him; and at other times party spir-
it  might  encourage  him  to  brave  it  at  every  turn. . . . 
But  the  American  judge  is  brought  into  the  political
arena  independently  of  his  own  will.  He  judges  the
law only because he is obliged to judge a case.  The po-
litical  question  that  he  is  called  upon  to  resolve  is
connected  with  the  interests  of  the  parties,  and  he 
cannot refuse to decide it without a denial of justice.” 
A.  de  Tocqueville,  Democracy  in  America  102-03  (P. 
Bradley ed. 1948). 

That  doctrine  of  standing,  that  jurisdictional  limitation 
upon  our  powers,  does  not  have  as  its  purpose  (as  the 
majority  assumes)  merely  to  assure  that  we  will  decide 
disputes in concrete factual contexts that enable “realistic 
appreciation  of  the  consequences  of  judicial  action,”  ante, 
at 14.  To the contrary.  “[T]he law of Art. III standing is 
built  on  a  single  basic  idea—the  idea  of  separation  of 
powers.”  Allen  v.  Wright,  468  U. S.  737,  752  (1984).    It 
keeps us minding our own business.

We  consult  history  and  judicial  tradition  to  determine
whether  a  given  “ ‘disput[e  is]  appropriately  resolved 
through the judicial process.’ ”  Lujan v. Defenders of Wild-
life,  504  U. S.  555,  560  (1992)  (internal  quotation  marks
omitted).  What history and judicial tradition show is that
courts do not resolve direct disputes between two political
branches  of  the  same  government  regarding  their  respec-
tive  powers.  Nearly  every  separation-of-powers  case
presents questions like the ones in this case.  But we have 
never  passed  on  a  separation-of-powers  question  raised