155, ORIG. TEXAS V. PENNSYLVANIA, ET AL.
The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.
Statement of Justice Alito, with whom Justice Thomas joins: In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction. See Arizona v. California, 589 U. S. ___ (Feb. 24, 2020) (Thomas, J., dissenting). I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.
“Standing†is required to sue because the federal courts can only hear “actual cases and controversies,†not hypothetical cases. To make a case and controversy, the person filing the lawsuit must have suffered an actual harm, not a merely hypothetical harm (the doctrine of standing can be complicated, but that’s a simple explantation). As to the “standing†problem, here is what Pennsylvania argued in its opposition:
Texas has not suffered harm simply because it dislikes the result of the election, and nothing in the text, history, or structure of the Constitution supports Texas’s view that it can dictate the manner in which four other states run their elections….
