For fans of constitutional "standing" only

The "standing" doctrine is not well known to non-lawyers, but you'll notice if comes up more and more frequently in high-profile cases as organizations and citizens try to overturn governmental policies, turning to the courts to address issues that they could not resolve through the political process. What we find in the standing cases is that not everyone can sue to overturn these policies. You have to satisfied strict standing policies as defined by the courts.

The case is Connecticut Parents Union v. Russell-Tucker, issued on August 11. The plaintiff organization (CTPU) sued the State of Connecticut over the state's standards regarding the racial composition of its interdistrict magnet schools. The organization claims the standards violate the Equal Protection Clause. Under the standards, "all interdistrict magnet schools in Connecticut [must] enroll at least 25% non-Black and non-Hispanic students." CTPU claims this requirement is a "hard racial quota." The organization claims that its efforts to repeal the standards has prevented it from devoting its time and energies to other matters, imposing "opportunity costs" on the organization.

When organizations challenge government policies in court, they always run into a standing argument. They have to show associational or representational standing to sue on behalf of its members. Or they can show standing if the organization is personally affected by the challenged policy. You don't see that very often. 

To show standing, the organization must show "an imminent injury in fact to itself as an organization (rather than its members) that is distinct and palpable" and "that its injury is fairly traceable to the challenged act." Plus it has to show "that a favorable decision would redress its injuries." The Court of Appeals has held that "an organization may suffer the requisite injury when it diverts its resources away from its other current activities" or suffers "some perceptible opportunity cost."

CTPU cannot show standing. The Court of Appeals (Cabranes, Lynch and Marrero [D.J.]) reasons:

Under CTPU’s argument, an organization could establish  standing by claiming to have  been  injured  by  any  law  or regulation touching any issue within the scope of its mission (which the organization itself can define) so long as it expends resources to oppose that law or regulation. For example, under CTPU’s theory of organizational standing, CTPU would be able to successfully plead an injury simply by pointing to any Connecticut law relating to education that it makes a significant effort to oppose. Accordingly, we reject such an expansive concept of organizational injury for standing purposes.

Where, as here, an organization is not directly regulated by a challenged law or regulation, it cannot establish “perceptible impairment”absent an involuntary material burden on its established core activities. In other words, the challenged law or regulation must impose a cost (e.g., in time, money, or danger) that adversely affects one of the activities the organization  regularly  conducted  (prior  to  the  challenged  act)  in pursuit of its organizational mission. For example, we have recognized that a cognizable injury may arise via a burden that is imposed on an organization when there is an increased demand for an organization’s services. But  we  think  that  expenditures  or  other  activities,  if incurred at the organization’s own initiative, cannot support a finding of injury—that is, when the expenditures are not reasonably necessary to continue an established core activity of the organization bringing suit, such expenditures, standing alone, are insufficient to establish an injury in fact for standing purposes. In other words, an organization’s decision to embark on categorically new activities in response to action by a putative defendant will not ordinarily suffice to show an injury for standing purposes, even if the organization’s own clients request the change.