Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Legal Standing

OK. This is a bit nerdy, but there is a well-recognized doctrine of "standing" in courts. Essentially, the Court says that if someone wrongs you, I can't sue them just because it makes me angry. For example, if someone punches my neighbor in the face, I can't sue that someone just because I like my neighbor and the guy punched him. Indiana and federal courts define it a bit differently from each other, but it essentially requires that (1) the plaintiff be injured in some fashion (2) that is fairly traceable to a defendant's improper conduct and (3) can be fairly addressed by the courts.

For what it's worth, "standing" is how Indiana defeated a challenge to its voter ID law a few years ago in the 7th Circuit. The complaining parties could not show that they had been injured by the voter ID law. But I digress.

I see that a federal trial court in Washington has issued an order halting President Trump's Executive Order on immigration in a case brought by the State of Washington. I am trying to figure out how the State of Washington has been harmed by this order. I can think of a few theories, but I haven't really fleshed it out too much. From where I stand, I just don't see that the State of Washington has standing to bring the suit. Ergo, it should be dismissed.

This is not to say that I agree with President Tangelo's immigration order, as I most assuredly do not. However, as I have told my Tea Party friends for the last 8 years or so, "unconstitutional" and "policy with which I disagree" are not synonymous.


No comments:

Post a Comment