Opinion ID: 1400623
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Overview of Standing Jurisprudence

Text: Federal taxpayers qua taxpayers, as a general matter, do not have standing in federal court. Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 487, 43 S.Ct. 597, 67 L.Ed. 1078 (1923). In Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968), the Supreme Court of the United States created a narrow exception to this general rule. See Hein, 127 S.Ct. at 2564; Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Am. United for Separation of Church & State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 481, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982) (noting that the limited nature of the  Flast exception to the Frothingham principle ought to be applied with rigor). In Flast, the Court set forth the standard under which a federal taxpayer may establish standing to bring an Establishment Clause challenge: First, the taxpayer must establish a logical link between that status and the type of legislative enactment attacked. Thus, a taxpayer will be a 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. Flast, 392 U.S. at 102-03, 88 S.Ct. 1942. When both nexuses are established, the Court explained, the litigant will have shown a taxpayer's stake in the outcome of the controversy and will be a proper and appropriate party to invoke a federal court's jurisdiction. Id. Under these narrow circumstances, the Court understood the Establishment Clause to operate[ ] as a constitutional limitation upon the exercise by Congress of the taxing and spending power conferred by Art. I, § 8 of the Constitution. Id. at 103-04, 88 S.Ct. 1942. The Supreme Court recently has provided significant guidance as to the breadth of the Flast exception to Frothingham 's general rule against taxpayer standing. See Hein, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 2553, 168 L.Ed.2d 424. The taxpayer-plaintiffs in Hein sought to challenge part of the President's Faith Based and Community Initiatives program. The program was funded by general Executive Branch appropriations from the federal treasury, and this was the taxpayer-plaintiffs' asserted basis for standing. The Court rejected the plaintiffs' taxpayer standing argument, with a plurality of the Court explaining that the link between congressional action and constitutional violation that supported taxpayer standing in Flast [was] missing. Hein, 127 S.Ct. at 2566. [11] The plurality explained that the Respondents do not challenge any specific congressional action or appropriation; nor do they ask the Court to invalidate any congressional enactment or legislatively created program as unconstitutional. That is because the expenditures at issue here were not made pursuant to any Act of Congress. Rather, Congress provided general appropriations to the Executive Branch to fund its day-to-day activities. These appropriations did not expressly authorize, direct, or even mention the expenditures of which respondents complain. Those expenditures resulted from executive discretion, not congressional action. Id. (footnote omitted). The plurality concluded that the plaintiffs could not establish the logical nexus between taxpayer status and the type of legislative enactment attacked because the expenditures that they challenged were not expressly authorized or mandated by any specific congressional enactment. Id. at 2568 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The plurality also rejected the plaintiffs' attempt to paint their lawsuit as a Kendrick -style as-applied challenge. Id. at 2567. In Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589, 108 S.Ct. 2562, 101 L.Ed.2d 520 (1988), the Supreme Court held that federal taxpayers had standing to bring an as-applied challenge to the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA). The plurality in Hein explained that the key to that conclusion was the Court's recognition that AFLA was at heart a program of disbursement of funds pursuant to Congress' taxing and spending powers, and that the plaintiffs' claims call[ed] into question how the funds authorized by Congress [were] being disbursed pursuant to the AFLA's statutory mandate. [ Kendrick, 487 U.S.] at 619-620[, 108 S.Ct. 2562] (emphasis added). AFLA not only expressly authorized and appropriated specific funds for grant-making, it also expressly contemplated that some of those moneys might go to projects involving religious groups. See id., at 595-596[, 108 S.Ct. 2562]; see also id., at 623[, 108 S.Ct. 2562] (O'Connor, J., concurring) (noting the partnership between governmental and religious institutions contemplated by the AFLA). Unlike this case, Kendrick involved a program of disbursement of funds pursuant to Congress' taxing and spending powers that Congress had created, authorized, and mandate[d]. Id., at 619-620[, 108 S.Ct. 2562]. Hein, 127 S.Ct. at 2567. The plaintiffs in Hein could only point to unspecified, lump-sum `Congressional budget appropriations' for the general use of the Executive Branch, and the plurality held that such a nexus was insufficient. Id. The Justices warned that [c]haracterizing this case as an as-applied challenge to these general appropriations statutes would stretch the meaning of that term past its breaking point. It cannot be that every legal challenge to a discretionary Executive Branch action implicates the constitutionality of the underlying congressional appropriation. When a criminal defendant charges that a federal agent carried out an unreasonable search or seizure, we do not view that claim as an as-applied challenge to the constitutionality of the statute appropriating funds for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Respondents have not established why the discretionary Executive Branch expenditures here, which are similarly funded by no-strings, lump-sum appropriations, should be viewed any differently. Id. at 2567-68. [12] Given that  Flast focused on congressional action, the plurality decline[d][the] invitation to extend its holding to encompass discretionary Executive Branch expenditures. Id. at 2568. Justice Scalia, in an opinion joined by Justice Thomas, concurred in the judgment, but he would have overruled Flast altogether. Justice Scalia explained that a taxpayer's purely psychological displeasure that his funds are being spent in an allegedly unlawful manner [is never] sufficiently concrete and particularized to support Article III standing. Id. at 2582. Flast 's two-pronged `nexus' test, Justice Scalia wrote, does not resolve the Article III deficiency, which is that the taxpayer seeks `relief that no more directly and tangibly benefits him than it does the public at large.' Id. at 2582-83 (quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 573-74, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992)). Consequently, Justice Scalia concluded that  Flast should be overruled. Id. at 2584. In Hinrichs v. Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Indiana General Assembly, we had occasion to apply Hein. In Hinrichs, the panel majority explained that there are several guiding principles to take away from Frothingham, Flast and their progeny. 506 F.3d 584, 598 (7th Cir.2007). One such principle is that, outside of the narrow confines of Flast, federal taxpayers may not lodge constitutional challenges against congressional appropriations. Id. Flast 's narrow exception only applies when the taxpayer has established a `logical link between [his taxpayer] status and the type of legislative enactment attacked' as well as a `nexus between that status and the precise nature of the constitutional infringement alleged.' Id. (quoting Flast, 392 U.S. at 102-03, 88 S.Ct. 1942) (emphasis supplied). Another guiding principle that the panel majority articulated is that the nexus between the plaintiff's taxpayer status and the legislative enactment must be a direct one.  Id. (explaining that [t]he plurality of the Court made clear in Hein that only `expenditures made pursuant to an express congressional mandate and a specific congressional appropriation' met the first nexus requirement; the plurality rejected the plaintiffs' claim that any `expenditure of government funds in violation of the Establishment Clause' would meet this requirement (quoting Hein, 127 S.Ct. at 2565)) (emphasis supplied). Applying these principles, the panel majority in Hinrichs concluded that the plaintiffs did not have taxpayer standing to challenge the constitutionality of legislative prayer as implemented by the Indiana House of Representatives' Minister of the Day program. The program, as it is presently administered, is not mandated by statute, the panel majority explained. Rather, [t]he origin of the practice is House Rule 10.2, and that rule merely provides that a prayer or invocation be given each meeting day before the House conducts any business. The manner in which the program is currently administered is a matter of House tradition, implemented at the discretion of the Speaker. Although there is some minimal amount of funds expended in the administration of the program, the plaintiffs have not pointed to any specific appropriation of funds by the legislature to implement the program. Id. at 598. Under these circumstances, the plaintiffs had not established a direct nexus between their taxpayer status and the legislative enactment that they sought to contest. Specifically, the panel majority explained that [t]he plaintiffs have not tied their status as taxpayers to the House's allegedly unconstitutional practice of regularly offering a sectarian prayer. They have not shown that the legislature has extracted from them tax dollars for the establishment and implementation of a program that violates the Establishment Clause. The appropriations, which cover the incidental costs of the program, did not expressly authorize, direct, or even mention the expenditures, Hein, 127 S.Ct. at 2566, attendant to the Minister of the Day program. Instead, the plaintiffs allege only an `expenditure of government funds in violation of the Establishment Clause,' which the Court explicitly rejected as inadequate in Hein. Id. at 2565 (internal citations omitted). Id. at 599. Because the plaintiffs failed to show that the legislature appropriat[ed]... funds for the allegedly unconstitutional purpose, the panel majority concluded that they could not establish the link between taxpayer and expenditure necessary to support standing. Id. at 600.