10-1973 Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., v. Obama

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Constitutional Law
Establishment Clause; standing

Citizens lack standing to challenge 36 U.S.C. 119, establishing the National Day of Prayer.

“Section 119 imposes duties on the President alone. It does not require any private person to do anything—or for that matter to take any action in response to whatever the President proclaims. If anyone suffers injury, therefore, that person is the President, who is not complaining. No one has standing to object to a statute that imposes duties on strangers. See, e.g., Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737 (1984). See also Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004), which holds that a person who objects (on establishment clause grounds) to the words ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance lacks standing to contest the Pledge’s content, when the litigant has not been obliged to say the Pledge himself and does not have parental rights with respect to a pupil who is present when the Pledge is recited. It takes an invasion of one’s own rights to create standing. (Plaintiffs do not contend that they come within the rare situation in which a statute’s addressees cannot protect themselves and jus tertii litigation may be authorized. Nor do plaintiffs invoke taxpayer standing. See Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, No. 09–987 (U.S. Apr. 4, 2011); Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., 551 U.S. 587 (2007).)”
Vacated and Remanded.

10-1973 Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., v. Obama

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, Crabb, J., Easterbrook, J.

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