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Congress's Inability To Solve Standing Problems, Heather Elliott

Heather Elliott

Critics of the Supreme Court’s Article III standing doctrine—“a word game played by secret rules” that restricts access to the federal courts—have fruitlessly suggested a variety of ways that the Court might itself fix the doctrine. Some have instead argued that Congress could solve the standing problem in various ways. No one has undertaken a systematic examination of Congress’s options; this Article fills that gap. Congress has three main courses of action. First, Congress may find, by statute, that certain classes of individuals have standing, in an effort to force the Court to accept those individuals as plaintiffs. The Court, …