Opinion ID: 184537
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The CCAGP's Standing to Challenge the Consent Decree

Text: 10 Before we proceed to the merits of the CCAGP's complaint, we must, as did the district court, determine whether the CCAGP has standing to challenge the consent decree. Despite the exhortation of the NAACP to the contrary, we find that the hurdle of standing in this case has been surmounted. 11 In order to establish standing under Article III, a complainant must allege (1) a personal injury in fact that is concrete and particularized and actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical, (2) a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of, and (3) that it is likely, rather than merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by the relief requested. See, e.g., Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136-37, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992); Branton v. FCC, 993 F.2d 906, 908 (D.C.Cir.1993). The NAACP's challenge focuses on the first of these requirements: namely, it contends that the CCAGP has failed to show that it has suffered any injury as a result of the implementation of the election plan in the consent decree. According to the NAACP, the CCAGP's opposition to the consent decree is nothing more than a generalized grievance, an abstract injury in nonobservance of the Constitution rather than the particularized injury necessary to confer standing. See, e.g., Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 754, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 3326, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984) (asserted right to have the government act in accordance with law not sufficient to confer standing). 12 We are not persuaded by the NAACP's arguments. The CCAGP has put forward a claim that as a result of the consent decree, its members have been denied the opportunity to vote for a full slate of the elected officials of their choice--officials who would thereafter be deemed to represent them. 8 [330 U.S.App.D.C. 25] Like plaintiffs who reside in a district that is the subject of a racial gerrymander challenge, see, e.g., United States v. Hays, 515 U.S. 737, 744-45, 115 S.Ct. 2431, 2435-36, 132 L.Ed.2d 635 (1995), the CCAGP asserts that the election procedure adopted by its local legislature has violated its members' protected voting rights. This alleged injury is certainly sufficient to grant standing--indeed, it is akin to the injury to voting rights claimed by the plaintiffs in Campbell that engendered the current controversy. It would be anomalous for us to assume that theCampbell plaintiffs had standing to challenge the county's method of voting but to hold that the CCAGP does not. 9 13 It is important to recognize that standing is a threshold inquiry; it  'in no way depends on the merits of the [petitioner's] contention that particular conduct is illegal.'  Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155, 110 S.Ct. 1717, 1722-23, 109 L.Ed.2d 135 (1990) (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 500, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2205-06, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975)). Thus, whether the CCAGP ultimately succeeds on its constitutional and state law claims is of no import to the standing analysis. What is important is whether the CCAGP 10 has succeeded in establishing the presence of a case or controversy, and it has surely met this burden here.