Court Opinion

ID: 9505364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:04:08.544167+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:24.709340
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Justice,
concurring in part 1.
I concur in part 1 of the Court's opinion but write separately to give more detailed attention to the question on which the Court of Appeals resolved this case-the question of the taxpayer-plaintiffs' standing to bring this lawsuit.
The majority cites our recent decision in State ex rel. Cittadine v. Indiana Dep't of Transp., 790 N.E.2d 978 (Ind.2003), as authority for the taxpayer-plaintiffs' standing here. Some further discussion of Ciftta-dine is useful to make clear that Cittading, consistent with prior law, confers taxpayer standing in constitutional cases only in limited circumstances.
Cittadine was not a constitutional case. That is, there was no unconstitutional expenditure of public funds alleged in that case. Cittadine did discuss our opinion in Pence v. State, 652 N.E.2d 486 (Ind.1995), the principal authority relied on by the *168Court of Appeals in this case. In that discussion, we unanimously held that the public standing doctrine permits claims that government action is unconstitutional but, because "[sItanding is a key component in maintaining our state constitutional scheme of separation of powers," Pence, 652 N.E.2d at 488, the " 'availability of taxpayer or citizen standing " is limited to "'extrome circumstances," Cittadine, 790 N.E.2d at 983 (quoting Pence, 652 N.E.2d at 488) (emphasis in Ciftadine).
Today's opinion deals with one such extreme cireumstance-a challenge brought under Article I, § 6, of the Indiana Constitution which imposes an explicit limitation on the expenditure of state funds for the benefit of religious or theological institutions.
Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968), provides a useful analogy. In Flast, the Supreme Court held that federal taxpayers had standing to challenge the expenditure of federal funds for teaching some subjects in and purchasing instructional materials for religious schools as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In doing so, the Court created an exception to the general rule stated in Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 43 S.Ct. 597, 67 L.Ed. 1078 (1923), that a litigant does not have standing when the sole basis for standing is that litigant's status as a federal taxpayer. The Court explained that standing is about "whether the party seeking relief has 'alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination of difficult constitutional questions'" Flast, 392 U.S. at 99, 88 S.Ct. 1942 (quoting Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962)). Because taxpayers may have the requisite interest in certain cireumstances, the Court found that there was "no absolute bar in Article III to suits by federal taxpayers challenging allegedly unconstitutional federal taxing and spending programs." Id. at 101, 88 S.Ct. 1942.
The crux of the standing question, the Court said, rests on the "nexus between the status asserted by the litigant and the claim he presents." Id. at 102, 88 S.Ct. 1942. For federal taxpayers, the necessary nexus requires both that the violation and the "precise nature of the constitutional infringement alleged" relate to one's status as a taxpayer. Id. Essentially, "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. 1, § 8." Id. at 102-03, 88 S.Ct. 1942. The taxpayers in Flost showed just that, as they challenged Congress's expenditure of funds as a violation of the Establishment Clause, which places a specific limit on Congress's taxing and spending power.
Although Flost does not control this case, its reasoning applies here. As in Flast, the taxpayer-plaintiffs assert a violation of an explicit limit on the General Assembly's ability to draw funds from the treasury. They challenge the power of the General Assembly to spend public funds on the dual-enrollment process because the expenditures allegedly violate Article I, § 6, of the Indiana Constitution: "No money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution." This is not a case in which a party challenges government action as exceeding its power where no clear limit is placed on that power. These taxpayers have a concrete interest in having taxpayer funds spent in a manner consistent with *169the explicit limit imposed on the General Assembly's spending power by Art. I, § 6.
We unanimously made clear in Cittadine that we "exercise ... judicial discretion with cautious restraint under the circumstances" in deciding constitutional claims so as not to overstep the constitutional limitations on the judiciary's authority. 790 N.E.2d at 983. Because there is an explicit constitutional provision that restrains the Legislature in this case, the Court does not overstep these limitations in deciding this challenge.
SHEPARD, C.J., joins.