There are a number of reasons why the proposed lawsuit by the House against President Obama is likely to be futile (or worse). Andrew McCarthy does an admirable job of laying many of them out here and here. Today I will address only one issue, the question of the House’s standing, from what may be a unique perspective.
This post is not about whether the House “ought” to be found to have standing as a matter of legal theory. I have no strong views on how much of modern standing doctrine can properly be derived from the Constitution’s “case or controversy” language and how much is an ahistorical judicial invention. On these questions see Professor Ramsey here and Professor Epstein here.
Nor would I argue that the House’s standing is foreclosed by controlling Supreme Court precedent. The Court has left the door open to institutional lawsuits by the House or Senate under certain circumstances and I assume that it could, if it wished, open that door wide enough to allow the House’s suit here. As discussed below, the reasoning of Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811 (1997), cuts against the standing theory offered by David Rivkin and Professor Foley in support of the House’s suit, but that is not my primary point.
The main point of this post is to explain why, IMHO, the courts will not in fact recognize the House’s standing to bring suit “to compel the president to follow his oath of office and faithfully execute the laws of our country,” as the Speaker’s June 25 memo puts it. Whether this result is best explained by a coherent theory of standing, sound constitutional policy, or naked judicial self-interest, I leave to the reader to decide.
Continue reading “U.S. House of Representatives v. Obama: The Problem of Standing”