Opinion ID: 1506501
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Legislator Plaintiffs

Text: Legislators have no special right to standing simply by virtue of their status: like other plaintiffs, legislators must establish a distinct, concrete injury in fact. Mayhew, 46 S.W.3d at 767 (noting that [a] legislator does not have a special standing to challenge a statute where the statute does not impede his legislative power); see also Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 830, 117 S.Ct. 2312, 138 L.Ed.2d 849 (1997) (holding that individual members of Congress lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of the Line Item Veto Act because they had failed to allege a sufficient personal stake in the dispute or a sufficiently concrete injury resulting from adoption of the statute); Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433, 438, 59 S.Ct. 972, 83 L.Ed. 1385 (1939) (holding that legislators whose votes would have been sufficient to defeat a legislative Act had standing to sue on the ground that their votes had been completely nullified); Korioth, 523 F.2d at 1275 (holding that a state legislator lacks standing to challenge constitutionality of a state statute where he failed to allege that the effectiveness of his vote or any other legislative power he might have had was impeded either by the majority vote or by implementation of the statute). The record reveals that on March 17, 2005, prior to approving SJR 31, the House of Representatives extensively discussed whether HJR 990 had been published in accordance with Article XI, section 3. [11] After the discussion, SJR 31 passed the House by a vote of eighty-eight to seven, with one abstention. Although the legislator Plaintiffs were outvoted, the record reveals that they had ample opportunity to discuss SJR 31 prior to the vote and to vote on the measure. In short, the legislator Plaintiffs have failed to establish that the effectiveness of their vote or any of their other legislative powers was impeded by the alleged untimely publication. Thus, the legislator Plaintiffs have failed to establish an injury sufficient to confer standing.