Far be it from lil ole me to criticise these great judicial minds, but I’m not interested in the names attached to the argument. The argument, as you concede, is inconsistent with the standing doctrine in all other cases.
Article III doesn’t say that there is standing in cases that deal with X, but a relaxed standard in cases that deal with Y.
Sometimes the Court wants to rule on something so bad that it finds standing where none exists.
It is. And I’ll concede it again, just to be sure.
True, but it also doesn’t define precisely when a case or controversy exists, so I guess one could argue something about that. . . but, yeah, I agree that whatever the standard is, there’s no principled reason to have TWO standards for when it exists. If a symbolic plaintiff can exist in immigration cases, I don’t know what prevents him from being used in any case.
But the moving hand writ in Mandel, so I can say that at least now, forty-plus years later, we might point to stare decisis as a reason to continue, but not expand, an errant doctrine.
The Society for the Preservation of Judicial Faceplants. Inspiring.