Page:United States v. Texas (2023).pdf/19

2 at any step, the court cannot reach the merits of the dispute. See Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 102–104 (1998). This is true whether the plaintiff is a private person or a State. After all, standing doctrine derives from Article III, and nothing in that provision suggests a State may have standing when a similarly situated private party does not. See Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U. S. 497, 536–538 (2007) (, dissenting).

The Court holds that Texas and Louisiana lack standing to challenge the Guidelines because “a party lacks a judicially cognizable interest in the prosecution … of another.” (internal quotation marks omitted). To be sure, the district court found that the Guidelines have led to an increase in the number of aliens with criminal convictions and final orders of removal who are released into the States. 606 F. Supp. 3d 437, 459–463, 467 (SD Tex. 2022). The district court also found that, thanks to this development, the States have spent, and continue to spend, more money on law enforcement, incarceration, and social services. Id., at 463–465, 467. Still, the Court insists, “[s]everal good reasons explain why” these harms are insufficient to afford the States standing to challenge the Guidelines.

I confess to having questions about each of the reasons the Court offers. Start with its observation that the States have not pointed to any “historical practice” of courts ordering the Executive Branch to change its arrest or prosecution policies. , . The Court is right, of course, that “history and tradition offer a meaningful guide to the types of cases that Article III empowers federal courts to consider.” TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 8) (internal quotation marks omitted). But, again, the district court found that the Guidelines impose “significant costs” on the States. 606 F. Supp. 3d, at 495. The Court today does not set aside this finding as clearly erroneous. Nor does anyone dispute that even one dollar’s worth of harm is traditionally enough to “qualify as