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Per Curiam
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
KEITH LANCE ET AL. v. MIKE COFFMAN, COLORADO
SECRETARY OF STATE
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
No. 06–641. Decided March 5, 2007
PER CURIAM.
The Elections Clause of the United States Constitution
provides that the “Manner of holding Elections for Sena
tors and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State
by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any
time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to
the Places of chusing Senators.” Art. I, §4, cl. 1 (emphasis
added). When Colorado legislators were unable to redraw
congressional districts after the 2000 census to accommo
date an additional Representative, a state court did it for
them. See Beauprez v. Avalos, 42 P. 3d 642 (Colo. 2002)
(en banc). The legislature was able to pass a redistricting
plan in 2003, which Colorado’s Governor signed into law.
See Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. §2–1–101.
Colorado’s attorney general, however, filed an original
action in the Colorado Supreme Court to enjoin Colorado’s
secretary of state from implementing this new plan, noting
that Article V, §44, of the Colorado Constitution limits
redistricting to once per census. The Colorado General
Assembly intervened in the action to defend its plan. The
Colorado Supreme Court granted the injunction, holding
that “judicially-created districts are just as binding and
permanent as districts created by the General Assembly,”
and that the court-drawn plan must remain in effect until
the next decennial census. People ex rel. Salazar v. David
son, 79 P. 3d 1221, 1231 (2003) (en banc), cert. denied, 541
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U. S. 1093 (2004). The court further held that this result
did not offend the Elections Clause of the United States
Constitution. 79 P. 3d, at 1232.
Immediately after Salazar was decided, four Colorado
citizens—none of whom had participated in Salazar—filed
the instant action in Federal District Court. They argued
that Article V, §44, of the Colorado Constitution, as inter
preted by the Colorado Supreme Court, violates their
rights under the Elections Clause.
The District Court initially determined that it lacked
jurisdiction to hear the suit in light of the Rooker-Feldman
doctrine, but we vacated and remanded for further pro
ceedings. Lance v. Dennis, 546 U. S. 459 (2006) (per cu
riam). On remand, the District Court held that the citi
zen-plaintiffs had standing to bring their Elections Clause
challenge. Lance v. Dennis, 444 F. Supp. 2d 1149, 1154–
1155 (2006). The court went on, however, to hold that the
suit was barred by issue preclusion because the plaintiffs
“stand in privity with the Secretary of State and the Gen
eral Assembly,” who were on the losing side in the Salazar
litigation. 444 F. Supp. 2d, at 1161. The concurring judge
concluded that appellants lacked standing to sue in the
first place. Id., at 1162 (Porfilio, J., concurring in result).
Plaintiffs appeal once again.
Federal courts must determine that they have jurisdic
tion before proceeding to the merits. Steel Co. v. Citizens
for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 94–95 (1998).*
Article III of the Constitution limits the jurisdiction of
federal courts to “Cases” and “Controversies.” One com
ponent of the case-or-controversy requirement is standing,
which requires a plaintiff to demonstrate the now-familiar
——————
* Our prior decision in this case did not violate this principle because
Rooker-Feldman concerns a district court’s subject-matter jurisdiction,
Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Industries Corp., 544 U. S. 280, 291
(2005), and “there is no unyielding jurisdictional hierarchy,” Ruhrgas
AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U. S. 574, 578 (1999).
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Per Curiam
elements of injury in fact, causation, and redressability.
See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560–561
(1992). “We have consistently held that a plaintiff raising
only a generally available grievance about government—
claiming only harm to his and every citizen’s interest in
proper application of the Constitution and laws, and seek
ing relief that no more directly and tangibly benefits him
than it does the public at large—does not state an Article
III case or controversy.” Id., at 573–574. See also Daim
lerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U. S. ___, ___ (2006) (slip
op., at 8) (refusing to create an exception to the general
prohibition on taxpayer standing for challenges to state
tax or spending decisions, and observing that taxpayer
standing has been rejected “because the alleged injury is
not ‘concrete and particularized,’ but instead a grievance
the taxpayer ‘suffers in some indefinite way in common
with people generally’ ” (citation omitted)).
Our refusal to serve as a forum for generalized griev
ances has a lengthy pedigree. In Fairchild v. Hughes, 258
U. S. 126 (1922), for example, a citizen sued the Secretary
of State and the Attorney General to challenge the proce
dures by which the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified.
We dismissed the suit because it was “not a case within
the meaning of . . . Article III.” Id., at 129. The plaintiff
sought to assert “only the right, possessed by every citizen,
to require that the Government be administered according
to law and that the public moneys be not wasted.” Ibid.
“Obviously,” we held, “this general right does not entitle a
private citizen to institute [a suit] in the federal courts.”
Id., at 129–130.
Similarly, in Ex parte Lévitt, 302 U. S. 633 (1937) (per
curiam), we dismissed a citizen suit claiming that Justice
Black’s appointment to this Court contravened the Consti
tution’s Ineligibility Clause, Art. I, §6, cl. 2. We found that
the petitioner had no interest in the suit “other than that
of a citizen and a member of the bar of this Court.” 302
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U. S., at 634. That was not enough. To have standing, we
observed, a plaintiff must have more than “a general
interest common to all members of the public.” Ibid. See
also Frothingham v. Mellon, decided with Massachusetts
v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 488 (1923) (taxpayer standing
cannot be predicated upon an injury the plaintiff “suffers
in some indefinite way in common with people generally”).
Cf. Tyler v. Judges of Court of Registration, 179 U. S. 405,
406 (1900) (“[E]ven in a proceeding which he prosecutes
for the benefit of the public . . . [the plaintiff] must gener
ally aver an injury peculiar to himself, as distinguished
from the great body of his fellow citizens”).
A pair of more recent cases further illustrates the point.
In United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166 (1974), a
federal taxpayer challenged the Government’s failure to
disclose certain CIA expenditures as a violation of the
Constitution’s Accounts Clause, which requires that “a
regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Ex
penditures of all public Money shall be published from
time to time.” Art. I, §9, cl. 7. Relying on Lévitt, this
Court dismissed the claim as a “generalized grievance”
that is “plainly undifferentiated and ‘common to all mem
bers of the public.’ ” Richardson, 418 U. S., at 176–177.
See also id., at 191 (Powell, J., concurring) (“The power
recognized in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803), is
a potent one. Its prudent use seems to me incompatible
with unlimited notions of taxpayer and citizen standing”).
The same day, in Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to
Stop the War, 418 U. S. 208 (1974), we addressed standing
to bring a challenge under the Constitution’s Incompatibil
ity Clause, which provides that “no Person holding any
Office under the United States, shall be a Member of
either House during his Continuance in Office.” Art. I, §6,
cl. 2. Citizen-taxpayers brought a lawsuit contending that
Members of Congress who were also members of the mili
tary Reserves violated the Incompatibility Clause. This
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Court dismissed for lack of standing. It “reaffirm[ed]
Lévitt in holding that standing to sue may not be predi
cated upon an interest of the kind alleged here which is
held in common by all members of the public, because of
the necessarily abstract nature of the injury all citizens
share.” 418 U. S., at 220. Refusing to entertain general
ized grievances ensures that “there is a real need to exer
cise the power of judicial review” in a particular case, and
it helps guarantee that courts fashion remedies “no
broader than required by the precise facts to which the
court’s ruling would be applied.” Id., at 221–222. In
short, it ensures that courts exercise power that is judicial
in nature.
The instant case parallels Fairchild, Lévitt, and their
progeny. The plaintiffs here are four Colorado voters.
Three days after the Colorado Supreme Court issued its
decision in Salazar, they filed a complaint alleging that
“Article V, §44 of the Colorado Constitution, as interpreted
in Salazar, violated [the Elections Clause] of the U. S.
Constitution by depriving the state legislature of its re
sponsibility to draw congressional districts.” Lance v.
Davidson, 379 F. Supp. 2d 1117, 1122 (2005). In light of
the discussion above, the problem with this allegation
should be obvious: The only injury plaintiffs allege is that
the law—specifically the Elections Clause—has not been
followed. This injury is precisely the kind of undifferenti
ated, generalized grievance about the conduct of govern
ment that we have refused to countenance in the past. It
is quite different from the sorts of injuries alleged by
plaintiffs in voting rights cases where we have found
standing. See, e.g., Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 207–208
(1962). Because plaintiffs assert no particularized stake
in the litigation, we hold that they lack standing to bring
their Elections Clause claim.
Our two decisions construing the term “Legislature” in
the Elections Clause do not contradict this holding. Each
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of these cases was filed by a relator on behalf of the State
rather than private citizens acting on their own behalf, as
is the case here. See State ex rel. Smiley v. Holm, 184
Min. 647, 238 N. W. 792 (1931) (per curiam), rev’d
sub nom. Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355 (1932); Ohio ex rel.
Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U. S. 565 (1916). In neither case
did we address whether a private citizen had alleged a
“concrete and particularized” injury sufficient to satisfy
the requirements of Article III.
The judgment of the United States District Court for the
District of Colorado is therefore vacated in part, and the
case is remanded with instructions to dismiss the Elec
tions Clause claim for lack of standing. We affirm the
District Court’s dismissal of the Petition Clause claim.
It is so ordered.