Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation

2007

Venue: SCOTUS
Facts: The federal government talked about faith-based inititatives in religious terms.
Posture: Apparently a lower court granted standing, but not a whole lot else is known.
Issue: Does the fact that the plaintiffs pay taxes give them standing when money from those taxes pays people who say religious things from time to time?
Holding: No. Reversed.
Rule: Payment of taxes is not enough to give standing to challenge federal actions.
Reasoning: There was a two-part test set out for taxpayer standing in Flast v. Cohen:
  1. Logical link between being a taxpayer and the type of legislative enactment attacked
  2. Nexus between being a taxpayer and the the nature of the constitutional infringement alleged
There's no link here between a congressional action and constitutional violation. Congress appropriates money from taxes for the executive, but that doesn't mean any taxpayer can challenge any discretionary executive action. That would just mean the courts were executive-branch police.
Dicta: Flast actually probably was a mistake, at least in part. We're not overruling it at this point, though.

Scalia (concurring): either psychic injury is consistent with Article III standing or its not. Time to decide. Flast was a mess.