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2 Rh United States clearly is not a proper petitioner in this case. The United States does not ask us to overturn the judgment of the court below or to alter that judgment in any way. Quite to the contrary, the United States argues emphatically in favor of the correctness of that judgment. We have never before reviewed a decision at the sole behest of a party that took such a position, and to do so would be to render an advisory opinion, in violation of Article III's dictates. For the reasons given in Author:Antonin Scalia's dissent, I do not find the Court's arguments to the contrary to be persuasive.

Whether the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives (BLAG) has standing to petition is a much more difficult question. It is also a significantly closer question than whether the intervenors in Hol­lingsworth v. Perry, ante, p. ___—which the Court also decides today—have standing to appeal. It is remarkable that the Court has simultaneously decided that the United States, which "receive[d] all that [it] ha[d] sought" below, ''Deposit Guaranty Nat. Bank v. Roper, 445 U.S. 326, 333 (1980), is a proper petitioner in this case but that the intervenors in Hollingsworth'', who represent the party that lost in the lower court, are not. In my view, both the Hollingsworth intervenors and BLAG have standing.