Opinion ID: 330543
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Taxpayer Korioth

Text: 10 The Supreme Court case which now marks the limit in allowing taxpayers Qua taxpayers standing to litigate a general constitutional claim is Flast v. Cohen, 1968, 392 U.S. 83, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 20 L.Ed.2d 947, in which plaintiffs alleged that congressional appropriations providing funds to religious schools violated the establishment clause of the first amendment. The Flast Court considered the general question to be whether there is a logical nexus between the status asserted and the claim sought to be adjudicated, and formulated the specific test for federal taxpayers as follows: 11 First, the taxpayer must establish a logical link between that status and the type of legislative enactment attacked. Thus, a taxpayer will be proper party to allege the unconstitutionality only of exercises of congressional power under the taxing and spending clause of Art. I, § 8 of the Constitution. It will not be sufficient to allege an incidental expenditure of tax funds in the administration of an essentially regulatory statute. . . . Secondly, the taxpayer must establish a nexus between that status and the precise nature of the constitutional infringement alleged. Under this requirement, the taxpayer must show that the challenged enactment exceeds specific constitutional limitations imposed upon the exercise of the congressional taxing and spending power and not simply that the enactment is generally beyond the powers delegated to Congress by Art. I, § 8. . . . 12 Id. at 102-03, 88 S.Ct. at 1954, 20 L.Ed.2d at 963. 13 Korioth objects to the use of local, state, and federal funds derived from his taxes in the administration of the Texas regional planning agency scheme, and urges that Flast'S two-part test supports his standing. He trips and falls, however, on the respective qualifications which Flast adds to each part of its test. Korioth is basically challenging an incidental expenditure of tax funds in the administration of an essentially regulatory statute and, by analogy to the federal situation in Flast, alleges simply that the enactment is generally beyond powers delegated to the state legislature rather than showing that the challenged enactment exceeds specific constitutional limitations imposed upon the exercise of the legislature's taxing and spending power. 16 14 That the rationale under which taxpayers were granted standing in Flast is an extremely limited one has become apparent with the Supreme Court's decisions in United States v. Richardson, 17 and in Schlesinger, supra, 418 U.S. at 227-229, 94 S.Ct. at 2935-2936, 41 L.Ed.2d at 722-23. We need not here decide what remains of the fading Flast doctrine, since Korioth would not have standing under the Flast test even if it were broadly construed.