Opinion ID: 2445720
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Petitioners' Claim of Injury in Fact

Text: We turn to petitioners' claim that they have suffered injury in fact. Petitioners claim that Councilmember Evans's campaign advertisement, and OCF's failure to sanction him for it, injured them in two respects: (1) by diminishing their ability as voters to affect the outcome of the 2008 primary election; and (2) by giving the green light to the repetition of such advertisements by Evans or other candidates in future elections. We are not persuaded that either of these grounds suffices to establish petitioners' standing. [50] Injury in fact is one of several requirements of standing to obtain judicial review of agency action under the DCAPA. [51] It derives from the case or controversy requirement of Article III of the Constitution. As the Supreme Court explained in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, [52] the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains three elements: First, the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in factan invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized,[ [53] ] and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained ofthe injury has to be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court. Third, it must be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. We evaluate petitioners' standing to obtain Board review of OCF's order in light of these requirements. We begin by considering petitioners' claim that OCF's order injured their ability to affect the electoral outcome in 2008. It might be supposed that the order could not have inflicted such injury because both the primary and general elections were already over when OCF issued the order, or that the occurrence of the elections rendered petitioners' claim moot. [54] Petitioners argue, however, that they sought to have OCF act on their complaint before the primary election was held, and that its delay in doing so (as well as the subsequent delays before the Board and on appeal) should not be allowed to deprive them of their standing or moot their claim. In general, petitioners argue, courts have held that standing exists [in election rights cases] even though the election has already occurred, [55] in large part because if the passage of the election were enough to deprive plaintiffs of standing, election cases would, as a practical matter, be unreviewable. [56] On the other hand, [w]hile the mootness exception for disputes capable of repetition yet evading review has been applied in the election context, that doctrine will not revive a dispute which became moot before the action commenced, because in the latter situation the plaintiff lacked standing at the outset. [57] Thus, the viability of petitioners' claim that OCF injured their ability to affect the election depends, in the first instance, on when that claim arose and was presented. This would have been an issue for the Board to resolve in applying its regulations, but as petitioners did not raise this claim of injury until their appeal to this courta defect we have chosen to overlook [58] the Board cannot be faulted for not addressing it. In effect, though, petitioners are arguing that they were injured not merely by OCF's order dismissing their complaint against Evans, but also (indeed, primarily) by OCF's failure to take other action on that complaint in a timely, effective fashion, before the primary election was held. From petitioners' standpoint, OCF's inaction both harmed them and delayed their presentation of their basic claim to the Board. Moreover, the Board treated petitioners as parties within the meaning of 3 DCMR § 3705.4 because they were the complainants who triggered OCF's investigation, [59] i.e., from the outset of that proceeding. On balance, therefore, we think it appropriate to treat petitioners' claim as though it had originated and been asserted before the primary election, because in practical effect that was when OCF failed to grant them relief on their complaint. No argument is made to us that petitioners were tardy in presenting their complaint to OCF, or that it would have been impossible for OCF to issue its order prior to the primary and general elections. Whether petitioners' standing to seek relief at the Board level evaporated after the Evans campaign voluntarily ceased using the photograph of Evans with Chief Lanier in its advertising is another question, however. [A] plaintiff must demonstrate standing separately for each form of relief sought. [60] In the circumstances of this case, it is difficult to perceive what additional relief petitioners had standing to seek (beyond the Evans campaign's compliance with OCF's request not to use the photograph). The usual rule, of course, is that a defendant's voluntary cessation of a challenged practice does not moot the case, because if it did, the defendant would be free to resume the practice. [61] That rationale lacks force here; the Evans campaign cannot resume its use of the photograph because the campaign is over (and petitioners' concerns about future campaigns are highly speculative at best). Thus, there would be no point to the issuance of a cease and desist order. While OCF could have imposed a monetary fine on Evans had it found he violated D.C.Code § 1-1106.51, [62] petitioners would not have been entitled to receive that fine (which would go to the District), and thus it would not have redressed their claimed injury. Nor would it have protected them from any non-speculative future harm. As a rule, citizen suitors lack standing to seek civil penalties for violations that have abated by the time of suit absent a realistic threat that a violation will recur. [63] Similarly, petitioners have no standing to require the Board to refer their complaint to the Office of the United States Attorney for criminal prosecution. [64] That said, the Board disposed of petitioners' request for review on the basis of lack of injury in fact, not non-redressability or mootness. As petitioners argue, generally speaking, [a]n administrative order can only be sustained on the grounds relied on by the agency. [65] Although that precept has its exceptions, we need not explore their applicability here. The injury in fact question is dispositive. While this court has never before considered a claim of voter standing based on injury to the voters' ability to influence an election as a result of campaign finance violations, federal appellate courts that have considered claims factually comparable to petitioners' have found them wanting. Foremost among those cases is Gottlieb v. Federal Election Commission. [66] In that post- Lujan case, individual voters (among others) sought judicial review of the FEC's dismissal of a complaint charging President Clinton's 1992 primary campaign committee with campaign finance violations. The voters based their standing to appeal on the injury to their ability to influence the political process: they claimed their support for rival candidates was rendered less effective because the Clinton campaign had greater funds with which to sway voters in the general election as a result of the violations. [67] The D.C. Circuit rejected this argument, finding that the purported injury rest[ed] on gross speculation and was far too fanciful to merit treatment as an `injury in fact.' [68] For one thing, the voters could not establish that any excess funds actually enhanced the Clinton campaign's ability to influence the electorate (or diminished his opponents' ability to do so). And under any circumstances, the court added, it is unclear how their influence as voters was diminished. The Clinton campaign may have received extra funds, but this did not prevent the voters from engaging in any of the numerous activities open to all politically active citizens. They were free to raise funds to support their own candidates, volunteer their time to work on those campaigns, and vote for the candidate of their choice. [69] An earlier, pre- Lujan decision of the same court reached similar conclusions. In Winpisinger v. Watson, [70] supporters of Senator Edward Kennedy sued the Carter-Mondale Committee and members of President Carter's administration, alleging that the defendants had illegally employed their public authority and expended federal funds to promote the President's renomination. [71] In their capacity as voters, the plaintiffs charged that the challenged practices diminish[ed], dilute[d] and nullif[ied] their votes, their lawful contributions of money to Senator Kennedy's campaign, and their other efforts to nominate the candidates of their choice. [72] The district court dismissed the action for lack of standing. The D.C. Circuit affirmed, agreeing that the plaintiffs had failed to allege concrete, non-speculative injury, and that [t]he variety of factors operating on the electorate at any given time would require extreme speculation to establish a relationship between the defendants' alleged conduct, and the plaintiffs' injury. [73] To cite another example, in Becker v. Federal Election Commission, [74] the First Circuit considered a challenge by presidential candidate Ralph Nader and his supporters to regulations permitting corporate financial sponsorship of the presidential debates, which allegedly had the injurious effect of preventing him from participating in the debates (because Nader refused to accept corporate contributions as a matter of political principle). The court held that Nader himself had standing to pursue the challenge, but that the voter plaintiffs who claimed they were harmed both directly, by the corruption of the political process allegedly caused by corporate sponsorship of the debates, and derivatively, by virtue of the injury suffered by Nader, the candidate whom they supporteddid not. [75] As to the first argument, the court explained, the harm done to the general public by corruption of the political process is not a sufficiently concrete, personalized injury to establish standing. [76] And [r]egardless of Nader's injury, the court said, his supporters remain fully able to advocate for his candidacy and to cast their votes in his favor. [Citations omitted] The only derivative harm Nader's supporters can possibly assert is that their preferred candidate now has less chance of being elected. Such harm, however, is hardly a restriction on voters' rights and by itself is not a legally cognizable injury sufficient for standing.[ [77] ] Similarly, in Colorado Taxpayers Union, Inc. v. Romer, [78] the Tenth Circuit held that the Libertarian Party and its members lacked standing to sue the Governor of Colorado for improperly using state resources to defeat a ballot initiative in the general election. The court found [a]ppellants' argument that they were forced to counteract the Governor's activities through the expenditure of additional funds to be purely conjectural, and that the Governor's activities did not impact the ability of the Libertarian Party or its members to associate, speak on behalf of the amendment, or vote for it. [79] No two cases are identical, and we do not necessarily endorse everything said in the foregoing cases, but they are instructive. In uniformly holding that voters could not satisfy Article III standing requirements by relying on the impairment of their ability to influence an election allegedly caused by their political opponent's use of forbidden resources, the courts in those cases rejected the gist of petitioners' standing claim here. The reasoning of those cases applies to petitioners' claim with equal force. The purported diminishment of petitioners' effectiveness as voters as a result of the Evans campaign's advertisement (or as a result of OCF's failure to penalize Evans for that advertisement) does not satisfy the requirements of injury in fact: it is neither concrete nor particularized. At best, it is conjectural rather than actual or imminent. Indeed, if anything, the record affirmatively suggests that petitioners and voters agreeing with them were effective in countering the challenged advertisement: according to petitioners' complaint, their public protests, together with those of the police union, embarrassed the Evans campaign and induced it to pull the ad. Petitioners say OCF's failure to find that Evans violated the law deprived them of information they could have used against Evans during the campaign. That purported informational injury is not sufficient to show injury in fact, however. The Supreme Court's decision in Fed. Election Commission v. Akins, [80] on which petitioners chiefly rely, does not support their argument. In Akins, a group of voters challenged the FEC's determination that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was not subject to Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) requirements that political committees disclose their membership, contributions and expenditures. The voters claimed their receipt of that information would help them (and others to whom they would communicate it) to evaluate candidates for public office, especially candidates who received assistance from AIPAC, and to evaluate the role that AIPAC's financial assistance might play in a specific election. [81] In finding that the voters had standing to pursue their challenge, the Court held that their injury in fact consisted of their inability to obtain information... that, on [the voters'] view of the law, the statute requires that AIPAC make public.  [82] The existence of a specific disclosure requirement in FECA was the critical point, for as the Court explained, it previously had held that a plaintiff suffers an `injury in fact' when the plaintiff fails to obtain information which must be publicly disclosed pursuant to a statute. [83] Petitioners did not charge the Evans campaign with violating any statutory disclosure requirement; indeed, they are not trying to have the Board force Evans to disclose any information. During the primary campaign, petitioners had and were able to use the relevant facts about the photograph of Evans with Chief Lanier. Petitioners merely sought a declaration by OCF and the Board that Evans violated the campaign finance law. The withholding of that kind of information does not cause the type of injury recognized in Akins and cannot suffice to support standing. To hold that a plaintiff can establish injury in fact merely by alleging that he has been deprived of the knowledge as to whether a violation of the law has occurred would be tantamount to recognizing a justiciable interest in the enforcement of the law. [84] Article III standing rules do not recognize such an interest as sufficient. [85] This does not mean that a candidate opposing Evans necessarily would have lacked standing to seek relief from his putative misuse of government resources in the campaign. The question is not before us in this case, but the position of a candidate differs from that of a mere voter. A campaign finance law violation might give the violator an unfair advantage over an opposing candidate in the electoral contest of public appeal and persuasion. When a candidate's ability to compete for political support on a level playing field has been threatened or compromised in that way, the candidate may have sufficient competitive or procedural injury to satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement of Article III. [86] But even when that is so, the merely derivative injury to voters who support the disadvantaged candidate is, in itself, too attenuated, insubstantial and unparticularized to afford them standing as well. [87] From what we have said, it almost goes without saying that petitioners do not fare any better with their claim that OCF's order injured them by setting a precedent that will allow Evans or other candidates to misuse government resources to create campaign advertisements in future elections in which petitioners are likely to participate as voters. The threatened harm that petitioners posit is neither concrete nor particularized; it is neither actual nor imminent; as the Board said, it is not only speculative, but also devoid of any hint of any adverse [e]ffect that is personal to them. Indeed, we need only add that OCF's order is not precedential at all; as petitioners themselves concede in their brief, OCF's `decisions' are only recommendations.... OCF is not an agency empowered to take final administrative action; final action must come from the Board. [88] And the Board did not render a precedential decision on the merits of petitioners' complaint against Evans.