Opinion ID: 18042
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: ACORN’s entire membership

Text: ACORN fares no better on its second argument, which is based on its contention that each of its members has an interest in this litigation sufficient to allow him or her to maintain suit against Louisiana. ACORN alleges that each of its members has suffered three different types of injuries as a result of Louisiana’s alleged failure to implement the NVRA. First, ACORN argues that because its members pledge to vote in elections, they have an interest in keeping their voter registration current, and therefore that Louisiana “threatens imminent harm to those 10 ACORN also contends that Condon stands for the proposition that unregistered voters have standing to bring NVRA suits because the district court in that case certified a class, with the individual plaintiff discussed supra as the class representative, of “all eligible but unregistered voters in the State of South Carolina.” 913 F. Supp. at 948. However, “the propriety of classwide relief . . . does not require a demonstration that some or all of the unnamed class could themselves satisfy the standing requirements for named plaintiffs.” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 395 (1996) (Souter, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (citing 1 H. NEWBERG & A. CONTE, Newberg on Class Actions, § 2.07, at 2-40 to 2- 41 (3d ed. 1992) (“Whether or not the named plaintiff who meets individual standing requirements may assert the rights of absent class members is neither a standing issue nor an Article III case or controversy issue but depends on meeting the prerequisites of Rule 23 governing class actions.”)). 32 members who are not currently registered, to those who may be moving, and to those who will be reaching voting age.” Second, ACORN argues that because its members pay dues and volunteer their time to ACORN to further the organization’s goals, each member has standing to bring suit against the appellees. Third, ACORN argues that it has presented summary judgment evidence that its members who receive services from public aid offices have not been provided voter registration materials, as allegedly required by the NVRA. We need not consider ACORN’s third argument, as we have already determined that ACORN has standing as an organization to challenge the appellees’ conduct with respect to the NVRA requirement that Louisiana make voter registration material and assistance available at voter registration agencies, including public aid offices. Like the voter registration activities that conferred standing on ACORN to bring this claim on its own behalf, the fact that some of ACORN’s members may have suffered an injury as a result of Louisiana’s alleged failure to comply with § 1973gg-5(a)(4)(A) does not provide them with standing to bring related claims for which they have suffered no Article III injury. In addition, ACORN’s claim that its members have suffered injuries because they are “in imminent danger” of losing their current voter registration status is much too speculative and hypothetical to constitute a sufficient Article III injury. In order for a member of ACORN to have standing on this ground, 33 ACORN “must show an individual who has sustained or is immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury as the result of the challenged official conduct, and the injury or threat of injury must be both real and immediate, not conjectural or hypothetical.” National Treasury Employees Union v. United States Dep’t of Treasury, 25 F.3d 237, 242 (5th Cir. 1994) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). ACORN points to no individual member who has ever received a mail-in driver’s license application without an accompanying voter registration form or to any member who believes that he or she is in immediate danger of being improperly removed from Louisiana’s voter rolls. Its argument on this point is entirely conjectural and therefore fails to present a factual question as to whether any ACORN members has suffered or is in immediate danger of suffering an injury sufficient to confer standing. Lastly, ACORN’s contention that its members have standing because they pay dues and volunteer their time to ACORN to further the organization’s goals lacks merit. Analytically, this argument is the same as ACORN’s argument that it has standing to sue on its own behalf as a result of resources it has spent combating the appellees’ allegedly illegal conduct. The only difference between the two arguments is where ACORN wants this court to focus; supra, we analyzed whether ACORN, as an organization, spent any particularized resources as a direct result of counteracting the appellees’ conduct; ACORN now asks us to concentrate our attention on those same resources as they 34 leave ACORN’s members hands and are given to ACORN as membership dues. Our conclusion, however, remains the same. ACORN has failed to include any evidence in the record that reasonably supports the inference that any of its members has spent any discrete, particularized, or concrete amount of money or time counteracting Louisiana’s alleged failure to include voter registration forms with mail-in driver’s license applications or to properly maintain its voter rolls. The district court therefore correctly granted summary judgment to the appellees on the issue of representational standing.11