Opinion ID: 530524
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: DKT's Freedom of Association Claims

Text: 85 In addition to the claims asserted that AID's implementation of the Mexico City Policy infringes the supposed constitutional rights of the FNGOs, the DNGO DKT Memorial, asserts that the Policy and the implementing grant clauses unconstitutionally burden its rights to freedom of association. Its argument is twofold. First, DKT asserts that the provision forbidding subgrants by domestic grant recipients to FNGOs who are ineligible to receive grants directly interferes with the domestic recipient's right to associate with FNGOs of its choice in nonabortion-related projects. The concrete factual setting for the assertion of this claim arises from the project in Uttar Pradesh, India, described in the amended complaint. All parties agree for purposes of the present litigation that the project would be eligible for subgrant funds, but for the unwillingness of the FNGOs to comply with AID's abortion-related restrictions. DKT asserts that but for the grant clauses, it would be free to associate with the nonconforming FNGOs in the Uttar Pradesh project and asserts that the clauses therefore impermissibly infringe its freedom of association. AID's response is a simple one. AID essentially says DKT is just as free to associate with the FNGO's as they ever were. They just can't do it on our money. 86 Factually, AID is obviously correct. And, we conclude, AID is legally correct as well. By way of background to this conclusion, we note that freedom of association, while not expressly mentioned in the Constitution, is protected as a First Amendment right, under the Supreme Court's decision in NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488 (1958). In that decision, which struck down an Alabama statute requiring disclosure of membership lists of the petitioning association, the Supreme Court recognized that freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the 'liberty' assured by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech. Id. at 460, 78 S.Ct. at 1171. In succeeding cases, the Supreme Court has found constitutionally protected 'freedom of association' in two distinct senses. Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 617, 104 S.Ct. 3244, 3249, 82 L.Ed.2d 462 (1984). One line of cases secures the individual freedom to enter into and maintain certain intimate relationships, id., principally marriage and the family. See generally id. at 618-20, 104 S.Ct. at 3249-50. The second, and the one with which we are concerned in the present case, recognizes a right to associate for the purpose of engaging in ... activities protected by the First Amendment, id. at 618, 104 S.Ct. at 3249, including speech. 87 The Supreme Court has recognized the constitutional protection of the right of expressive association in varied contexts, see cases collected in Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. at 618-21, 104 S.Ct. at 3249-51, but plaintiffs have offered no case in which the Court has extended this protection to the decision of two or three organizations to associate together for the conduct of an undertaking, such as the Uttar Pradesh population planning project, involving much conduct and some expression. Nor have we found any such case. Perhaps the closest example in prior Supreme Court law to the facts at hand is Lyng v. International Union, UAW, 485 U.S. 360, 108 S.Ct. 1184, 99 L.Ed.2d 380 (1988), in which labor unions and their members asserted the rights of the members to associate together for the purpose of conducting a strike. The Court recognized that the right to association encompasses the combination of individual workers together in order better to assert their lawful rights. Id. at ----, 108 S.Ct. at 1189. 88 That case was certainly stronger for the union members than is the present case for the three NGOs. In that case the purpose of the particular project for which the unions and their members sought protection of associative rights was directly to exercise freedom of expression. In the present case, DKT does not assert that the project at Uttar Pradesh is to exercise freedom of speech per se, but rather that their associative rights in this project be protected because of their expression elsewhere. Again we know of no case that goes so far, and we are unwilling to hold on the present record that the constitutional protection of the right to associate is so extended. However, since we will conclude that even if the right does so extend, the policy and the grant clauses work no infringement of the right, we will assume for purposes of this opinion that the combination of the NGOs in the Uttar Pradesh project is entitled to freedom of association protection. 89 Our conclusion that the policy and the grant clauses work no infringement of the assumed right of association is based on precisely the factual assertion made by DKT. The restriction on subgranting creates no obstacle in the way of DKT's association with the FNGOs that would not be there absent the existence of the grant program in the first place. The only thing that presently prevents DKT and the FNGOs from associating in the Uttar Pradesh project is the unwillingness or inability of DKT and its prospective partners to fund the project. If they become willing or able to fund the project with their own money, or money granted by some source other than United States foreign aid funds, then they can undertake the project immediately. Neither AID nor any other arm of the federal government has erected the obstacle of impecunity or parsimony, they have simply declined to clear that obstacle out of the NGOs' way. 90 Just as the Supreme Court in Maher v. Roe, supra, concluded that the Connecticut regulations against funding nontherapeutic abortions did not interfere with the rights recognized in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973), neither does the present policy or its implementation interfere with the right of association. In that case, as we noted above, the regulation placed no obstacle in the pregnant woman's path, Maher, 432 U.S. at 474, 97 S.Ct. at 2382, but only left her as dependent as before on private sources for the service she desired. Similarly, in the present case, the decision of the government not to fund the association of DNGOs with FNGOs who engage in pro-abortion activity only leaves the DNGOs as dependent on private source funds as they were before. 91 As we also noted above, not only Maher v. Roe, but a whole line of Supreme Court cases teaches us that the refusal to subsidize the exercise of a constitutionally protected right is not tanamount to an infringement of that right. See, e.g., Regan v. Taxation With Representation, 461 U.S. 540, 103 S.Ct. 1997, 76 L.Ed.2d 129 (1983); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976); and Cammarano v. United States, 358 U.S. 498, 79 S.Ct. 524, 3 L.Ed.2d 462 (1959). Perhaps particularly instructive is language from Buckley. That case considered the constitutionality of public financing under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, 86 Stat. 3, as amended by the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, 88 Stat. 1263. As we noted above, that Act provided financial subsidies for some but not all candidates for certain offices. In upholding the constitutionality of this differentiation in subsidy, the Court rejected an analogy to such cases as American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U.S. 767, 94 S.Ct. 1296, 39 L.Ed.2d 744 (1974), which had stricken down burdensome restrictions on obtaining places on ballots. In rejecting that analogy, the Court reasoned that the funding law 92 does not prevent any candidate from getting on the ballot or any voter from casting a vote for the candidate of his choice; the inability, if any, of minor-party candidates to wage effective campaigns will derive not from lack of public funding but from their inability to raise private contributions. 93 Buckley, 424 U.S. at 94-95, 96 S.Ct. at 670-71. 94 As the Supreme Court observed in Maher v. Roe, [t]here is a basic difference between direct state interference with a protected activity and state encouragement of an alternative activity consummate with legislative policy. 432 U.S. at 475, 97 S.Ct. at 2383. Without reiterating the discussion of the various cases distinguishing between interference with the exercise of a right and the refusal to subsidize it, we conclude that the decision of the Executive not to fund certain associations by subgrant as well as by grant infringes no right of the DNGO desiring to join in the unsubsidized association. 95 We are given confidence in the conclusion by the Supreme Court's decision in Lyng v. International Union, UAW, supra. In that case, strikers challenged on freedom of association grounds the constitutionality of a statute restricting the eligibility of households containing strikers to obtain food stamps. The statute not only prohibited such households from qualifying for allotment of food stamps but placed them in a less favorable status than families containing members who voluntarily quit jobs. The households containing strikers were ineligible for the duration of the strike, no matter how long, whereas voluntary quitters regained eligibility after ninety days. Even in light of this asserted discrimination, the Court subjected the statute only to a rationality analysis, and concluded that this refusal to subsidize was valid since it was rationally related to the stated objective of maintaining neutrality in private labor disputes. 485 U.S. at ----, 108 S.Ct. at 1193. As we concluded above, the decision of the Executive to fund some but not all population planning activity is not an invidious discrimination. The decision not to indirectly fund the same activity which the government has declined to fund directly is obviously rationally and perhaps necessarily related to the decision not to fund the activity in the first place, cf. Grove City College v. Bell, supra (upholding restrictions on aid to education by giving the same effect to indirect aid to college through federally insured loans to students as to direct aid). We will no more invade the province of the executive branch to make its policy determinations as to subsidization on DKT's attack on limitations of indirect aid than on the FNGOs' attack on direct aid. 96
97 The other argument that DKT's associational rights are infringed, is advanced more vigorously by amici American Civil Liberties Union, et al., than by DKT itself. That argument is that the AID restriction on grants to any FNGO that performs or actively promotes abortion as a method of family planning infringes DKT's right to associate with FNGOs on abortion-related projects. Amici argue that [t]he Clause cripples DKT in its efforts to initiate, with its own funds, international cooperative projects to preserve or advance abortion rights, because the grant clause forbidding foreign grant recipients from receiving AID funds if they participate in abortion promotion even with non-AID funds buys off DKT's potential partners in international association to promote abortion for family planning purposes. Brief of Amici Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception, et al., at 10. This argument asserts that rather than lose AID funding for their nonabortion projects, DKT's fair-weather foreign associates will withdraw from or decline to participate in abortion-related projects with DKT. 98 Whether this restriction and the alleged infringement of DKT's associational rights are constitutionally impermissible raises problematic constitutional questions. First, before this Court are only organizations asserting that restrictions applied to them qua organizations infringe the right of the organizations to associate together. Neither this Court nor the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution protects rights of association between two organizations. NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 78 S.Ct. 1163, 2 L.Ed.2d 1488 (1958), and Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 104 S.Ct. 3244, 82 L.Ed.2d 462 (1984), both find a constitutionally protected 'freedom of association.'  Id. at 617, 104 S.Ct. at 3249. Both cases also recognize the right of individuals to associate in groups to exercise constitutional freedoms. NAACP, 357 U.S. at 460-63, 78 S.Ct. at 1170-72; Roberts, 468 U.S. at 622, 104 S.Ct. at 3251. Nevertheless, we know of no case, and plaintiffs have not drawn our attention to any case, protecting associational relationships exclusively between organizational entities. Indeed, although NAACP allowed the NAACP to assert the rights of its members, the Supreme Court specifically addressed only the right of the members to associate and not the right of the organization itself. NAACP, 357 U.S. at 458-59, 78 S.Ct. at 1169-70. Similarly Roberts examined the members' freedom of intimate association and [the members' ] freedom of expressive association. Roberts, 468 U.S. at 618, 104 S.Ct. at 3250 (emphasis added). Likewise, Board of Directors of Rotary Int'l v. Rotary Club, 481 U.S. 537, 107 S.Ct. 1940, 95 L.Ed.2d 474 (1988), considered the effect of a state statute prohibiting gender discrimination on individuals' freedom of association even though the club was a party. Id. at 544-45, 107 S.Ct. at 1945. 99 Lyng v. Int'l Union, UAW, 485 U.S. 360, ----, 108 S.Ct. 1184, 1189, 99 L.Ed.2d 380 (1988), refers to the associational right of appellee individuals and their unions, thus offering some support for a recognition of organizational rights of association. However, Lyng does not extend to the right of one organizational entity to associate with another organizational entity. Like the preceding cases, Lyng focused on the impairment of individuals' ability to join together. 100 Second, DKT asserts its right to associate with foreign organizations. Although the right of Americans to maintain First Amendment relationships with foreigners has been upheld in Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301, 85 S.Ct. 1493, 14 L.Ed.2d 398 (1965) (allowing U.S. citizen to receive, without interference, mail from foreign communist organizations), the right of Americans to associate with nonresident aliens is not an absolute. Palestine Information Office v. Shultz, 853 F.2d 932, 941 (D.C.Cir.1988). 101 In Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753, 92 S.Ct. 2576, 33 L.Ed.2d 683 (1972), using logic parallel to amici 's here, a group of American professors argued that the Attorney General's failure to allow a foreign Marxist to speak at their invitation deprived the Americans of their First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court permitted the exclusion of Mr. Mandel over this constitutional objection. Because of Congress's plenary power to regulate admissions to the United States, the Supreme Court did not require that the government's interest in exclusion be balanced against the First Amendment infringement. Id. at 770, 92 S.Ct. at 2585. In Shultz, however, presented with important interests, but not plenary power, this Court held that we must weigh [the interests of U.S. citizens in associations with foreigners] against those of the government. Palestine Information Office v. Shultz, 853 F.2d at 941. 102 AID asserts that our decision on the present case should be informed by the Supreme Court decision in Lyng. There the Supreme Court noted that the statute restricting food stamp eligibility of households containing striking union members did in fact interfere with the striker's right to associate either with his family or his union for expressive purposes, both of which are protected exercises of the right of association. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court held that the statute was not unconstitutional because it did not  'directly and substantially interfere'  with the exercise of the associational rights. Id. 485 U.S. at ----, 108 S.Ct. at 1189 (quoting Lyng v. Castillo, 477 U.S. 635, 638, 106 S.Ct. 2727, 2729, 91 L.Ed.2d 527 (1986)). The Court further observed that the statute did not 'order' appellees not to associate together for the purpose of conducting a strike, or for any other purpose, and it does not 'prevent' them from associating together or burden their ability to do so in any significant manner. Id. 485 U.S. at ----, 108 S.Ct. at 1189-90. Thus, the Supreme Court held the statute constitutional while acknowledging that the Government's refusal to extend food stamp benefits to those on strike undeniably makes it harder for strikers to maintain themselves and their families during the strike and exerts pressure on them to abandon their union. Id. 103 Here, too, AID argues the challenged clauses may make it harder for DKT to find partners for its international abortion promotion ventures, but it does not prevent any association, nor does it order anyone not to associate with anyone else. 104 Also supportive of AID's position is Grove City College v. Bell, supra. In that case the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the application of certain limitations on federal aid to education in a context somewhat analogous to that posed by amici on behalf of DKT. In that case the Court was construing a limitation imposed by section 901(a) of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1681(a). Regulations promulgated under that section forbade aid to educational programs which did not execute an Assurance of Compliance required by 34 C.F.R. Sec. 106.4 (1983). Grove City College did not discriminate, did not receive any direct federal aid, but on religious and other First Amendment protected grounds declined to enter into compacts with the government and refused to execute the Assurance of Compliance. Although Grove City College received no direct federal aid, 140 of its students received federal grants and 342 obtained guaranteed student loans. In the face of First Amendment challenges from Grove City College and some of its students, the Supreme Court held that Congress could attach reasonable and unambiguous conditions to federal financial assistance that educational institutions are not obligated to accept. Grove City College, 465 U.S. at 575, 104 S.Ct. at 1222. The Supreme Court further stated [s]tudents affected by the Department's action may either take their [grant money] elsewhere or attend Grove City College without federal financial assistance. Id. 105 The present allegations cast DKT in the role of Grove City and the allegedly bought-off FNGOs in the role of the grant-receiving students. The hypothetical FNGOs may forgo the federal aid and associate with DKT in abortion programs or they may take the grants and their association elsewhere. The dissent would distinguish the present case from Grove City by mischaracterizing the Grove City decision. My colleague asserts that abortion (or anti-abortion) counseling is constitutionally sheltered speech ... while discriminating adversely on the basis of race, national origin, religion or sex is not one's constitutional right. Dissent at 301, n. 2 (citations omitted). However, in Grove City [t]he undisputed fact is that Grove City does not discriminate--and so far as the record in this case shows--never has discriminated against anyone on account of sex, race, or national origin. This case has nothing whatever to do with discrimination past or present. Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U.S. at 577, 104 S.Ct. at 1223 (Powell, J., concurring). Section V of the majority opinion in Grove City, 465 U.S. at 575-76, 104 S.Ct. at 1222, from which we quoted in the last preceding paragraph and in which the Supreme Court rejected the First Amendment claim of Grove City and its students, neither cited Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 U.S. 574, 103 S.Ct. 2017, 76 L.Ed.2d 157 (1983), nor accused Grove City of discrimination. 106 In any event, on the present record we need not decide between the arguments of DKT, their amici, and the dissent, on the one hand and AID on the other with respect to this point. Indeed, we must not so decide, for we have no jurisdiction. The doctrine underlying our lack of jurisdiction is pointedly demonstrated by amici 's argument. They seek to illuminate the effect of the challenged clauses, not with facts but with a hypothetical example concerning a United States agency bribing foreigners not to attend a political speech by an American politician travelling abroad. Brief for Amici Curiae Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception, et al., at 10 n. 14. We, of course, can do nothing for the fictitious American or her audience, since that is but a hypothetical case. The greater problem is that the case of the fleeing FNGOs is just as hypothetical as the amici 's example. So far as the record establishes, neither of these cases has ever happened yet. We are barred from determining the issues presented in either of these hypotheticals by the absence of a claim ripe for adjudication. 7 While the ripeness doctrine has a prudential branch, see, e.g., Better Government Ass'n v. Department of State, 780 F.2d 86 (D.C.Cir.1986), a lack of ripeness arising from the fact that no concrete injury has yet occurred is jurisdictional. As the Supreme Court has often told us,  'the federal courts established pursuant to Article III of the Constitution do not render advisory opinions.'  Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 14, 92 S.Ct. 2318, 2326, 33 L.Ed.2d 154 (1972) (quoting United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 89, 67 S.Ct. 556, 564, 91 L.Ed. 754 (1947)). An advisory opinion is what plaintiffs seek in the present case on this issue. After cross-motions for summary judgment, an appeal with a remand and an opportunity to amend the complaint, and another round of cross-motions for summary judgment, DKT has yet to point to the first grant-receiving FNGO who would be associating with it but for the limitations in the challenged grant clauses. The amended complaint offered allegations sufficient to give DKT standing to assert its objections to the subgrant restrictions. However, as to the claim that the restrictions on direct grants to FNGOs infringe DKT's rights, DKT does not allege that PSS or PSFP has broken off association or that they will break off association with DKT. Indeed, appellant's complaint specifies that none of the appellant NGOs will cease performing abortions. Consequently, the only harm even inferable from the facts alleged is to the FNGOs who would forgo funding rather than cease their abortion-related activities and associations. As we have stated earlier, the FNGOs are without standing to assert this claim and DKT, without any injury to itself, is likewise without standing to assert the rights of the FNGOs. See Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 193-94, 97 S.Ct. 451, 454-55, 50 L.Ed.2d 397 (1976) (plaintiff permitted to assert jus tertii standing because she suffered injury in fact); Secretary of State v. J.H. Munson Co., 467 U.S. 947, 958, 104 S.Ct. 2839, 2847, 81 L.Ed.2d 786 (1984) (in order to bring any claim, including one jus tertii, party must sustain injury in fact). 107 DKT does not allege that any individual or organization has refrained from associating with it. Nor does DKT allege the existence of any particular organization that is likely to break off association. At most, plaintiffs and amici have asserted in briefs that this consequence is possible. Such a claim is the substance of law school exams, not of cases and controversies. Indeed, the only FNGOs ever named by DKT are its co-plaintiffs who, according to the full record, neither accept grants nor curtail their association with DKT. In this regard DKT and its co-plaintiffs rather closely resemble the respondents in Laird v. Tatum, who had complained in district court of the chilling effect upon the exercise of their First Amendment rights of intelligence-gathering programs of the Department of Defense. In rejecting their claim, the Supreme Court concluded that [a]llegations of a subjective 'chill' are not an adequate substitute for a claim of specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm.... Laird, 408 U.S. at 13-14, 92 S.Ct. at 2325-26. In so doing, the Supreme Court noted in the margin that respondents ... were 'not people, obviously, who are cowed, and chilled'  but were quite willing 'to open themselves up to public investigation and public scrutiny.'  Thus, the Court concluded, [e]ven assuming a justiciable controversy, if respondents themselves are not chilled, but seek only to represent those ... whom they believe are so chilled, respondents clearly lack that 'personal stake in the outcome of the controversy' essential to standing. Id. at 13-14, n. 7, 92 S.Ct. at 2326, n. 7 (quoting Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 703, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962)). Ripeness, like standing, serves the central perception ... that courts should not render decisions absent a genuine need to resolve a real dispute. 13A C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure Sec. 3532.1 (1984), and authorities collected therein. 108 Here it is not only the application of the grant clause but also the response of unidentified third parties to that clause that is in question. If the injury be a future one the occurrence of the injury must be reasonably certain and clearly describable for the action to be deemed 'ripe' for adjudication. Martin Tractor Co. v. Federal Election Comm'n, 627 F.2d 375, 379 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. National Chamber Alliance for Politics v. Federal Election Comm'n, 449 U.S. 954, 101 S.Ct. 360, 66 L.Ed.2d 218 (1980). Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, 438 U.S. 59, 81, 98 S.Ct. 2620, 2634, 57 L.Ed.2d 595 (1978), teaches that the constitutional requirement for ripeness is injury in fact. Likewise, Martin Tractor Co. states that [r]ipeness enters the Article III 'case or controversy' picture in the determination whether the requisite injury is in sharp enough focus and the adverseness of the parties concrete enough to permit a court to decide a real controversy and not a set of hypothetical possibilities. 627 F.2d at 379. 109 After rejection of its claim by the District Court on the first summary judgment motions, an opportunity to amend, and remand, with respect to the buy-off argument DKT still comes before us with a bare allegation of subjective chill of unnamed FNGOs. We look to the record in the context of a summary judgment motion, where the party [must] go beyond the pleadings and by [its] own affidavits, or by the 'depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file,' designate 'specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.'  Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 324, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e)). On the present record, after more than ample opportunity, plaintiff can point to nothing demonstrating even the remotest evidence of a controversy ripe for review on this issue. Therefore, we conclude, that summary judgment should have been entered dismissing plaintiffs' constitutional attack on the AID grant clause denying FAA funds to FNGOs unwilling to forgo abortion-related activity during the term of the grant. 110 The dissent would reject our ripeness analysis in part with the accusation that we have lowered the boom on plaintiffs without giving them proper notice and opportunity to be heard. Dissent at 302 n. 3. To this we would offer brief response. The buying-off claim which we find unripe was not articulated by plaintiffs in their complaint. Neither did plaintiffs raise it in their prior appeal to this Court. Nor did plaintiffs assert it in the papers accompanying the cross-motions for summary judgment. Nor did they assert it in their principal brief in this Court. It was only when this argument was raised by amici that plaintiffs adopted it as their own. Underscoring the lack of record support for the buying-off argument is the fact that our dissenting colleague finds concreteness (or documentation of reality to paraphrase the dissent) not in any affidavit or other accompanying evidence from the District Court proceeding, but from the presence of population amici who joined in briefing to this Court. Dissent at 300, n. 1. Therefore, while we grant that we would rather not dispense with an alleged claim by dismissal on ripeness grounds at the eleventh hour, when the argument is not made until the tenth hour plus fifty-nine minutes, we can dispense with it no sooner. 111 We would further remind our colleague that courts have the duty to examine ripeness when the case presents the problem, even when the parties do not wish it addressed. 112 [T]o the extent that questions of ripeness involve the exercise of judicial restraint from unnecessary decision of constitutional issues, the Court must determine whether to exercise that restraint and cannot be bound by the wishes of the parties. 113 Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U.S. 102, 138, 95 S.Ct. 335, 356, 42 L.Ed.2d 320 (1974) (footnote omitted). 114 Since this is such a case, we cannot avoid the ripeness question. As we have previously held [t]he question of ripeness goes to our subject matter jurisdiction, and thus we can raise the issue sua sponte at any time. Duke City Lumber Co. v. Butz, 539 F.2d 220, 221 n. 2 (D.C.Cir.1976). 115 Finally, we perceive that we have inflicted no unfairness on plaintiffs. In our prior review of this case, we did indeed, as the dissent points out, remand the matter for further consideration on the issue of standing. DKT Memorial Fund, Ltd., 810 F.2d at 1239. Ripeness and standing involve the same considerations of currently redressable injury. [R]ipeness ..., indeed, could be seen as providing time-bound perspective[ ] on the injury inquiry of standing. 13 C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure, Sec. 3531 at 350 (1984). Otherwise put: standing and ripeness theories often merge so closely that there is no reason to attempt separation. 13A C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure, Sec. 3532.1 at 131 (1984) (citing, inter alia, Pence v. Andrus, 586 F.2d 733, 736-39 (9th Cir.1978) (Standing and ripeness are similar in that both doctrines prevent courts from becoming enmeshed in abstract questions which have not concretely affected the parties.)). In the present case, this enmeshing of ripeness and standing doctrines is well illustrated. The attempt to substitute subjective 'chill'  for claim of specific present objective harm or threat of future harm caused the District Court initially to determine that plaintiffs lacked standing. DKT Memorial Fund, 630 F.Supp. at 242 (citing Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. at 13-14, 92 S.Ct. at 2325-26). The same inadequacy of the attempted substitution, even after the amendment of the complaint, necessarily dooms the belatedly asserted buying-off claim on ripeness grounds. Indeed, Laird v. Tatum is not at pains to distinguish between standing on the one hand and ripeness on the other. Rather, it requires, by whatever doctrinal appellation, specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm, Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. at 14, 92 S.Ct. at 2326, as opposed to [a]llegations of a subjective 'chill.'  Id. at 13, 92 S.Ct. at 2325-26. Plaintiffs were on quite adequate notice long ago of the need for such specific present harm and have demonstrated none.