OCTOBER TERM, 1996

															Syllabus

															RAINES, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET, ET AL. v. BYRD ET AL.

															APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA No. 96-1671. Argued May 27, 1997-Decided June 26, 1997 Appellees, Members of the 104th Congress, voted "nay" when
Congress passed the Line Item Veto Act (Act), which gives the
President the authority to cancel certain spending and tax benefit
measures after he has signed them into law. The day after the Act
went into effect, they filed suit against appellants, Executive
Branch officials, challenging the Act's constitutionality. The
District Court denied appellants' motion to dismiss, finding that
appellees' claim that the Act diluted their Article I voting power
was sufficient to confer Article III standing; and that their claim
was ripe, even though the President had not yet used the Act's
cancellation authority, because they found themselves in a position
of unanticipated and unwelcome subservience to the President before
and after their votes on appropriations bills. The court then
granted appellees summary judgment, holding that the Act violated
the Presentment Clause, Art. I, § 7, cl. 2, and constituted an
unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the
President. Held: Appellees lack standing to bring this suit. Pp.
818-830.

															(a) The federal courts have jurisdiction over this dispute only
if it is a case or controversy. Art. III, § 2. In order to meet the
standing element of the case-or-controversy requirement, appellees
must allege a personal injury that is particularized, concrete, and
otherwise judicially cognizable. Lujan v. Defenders of
Wildlife, 504 U.
S. 555 , 561; Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737 , 751. This
Court insists on strict compliance with the jurisdictional standing
requirement, see, e. g., id., at 752, and its standing
inquiry is especially rigorous when reaching the merits of a
dispute would force it to decide the constitutionality of an action
taken by one of the other two branches of the Federal Government.
pp. 818-820.

															(b) This Court has never had occasion to rule on the legislative
standing question presented here. Appellees are not helped by Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 ,
496,512-514, in which the Court held that a Congressman's challenge
to the constitutionality of his exclusion from the House of
Representatives presented an Article III case or controversy.
Appellees have not been singled out for specially unfavorable
treatment as opposed to other Members of their respective bodies,
but 812 Syllabus

															claim that the Act causes a type of institutional injury which
damages all Members of Congress equally. And their claim is based
on a loss of political power, not loss of something to which they
are personally entitled, such as their seats as Members of Congress
after their constituents elected them. pp.820-821.

															(c) Appellees' claim also does not fall within the Court's
holding in Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433 , the one
case in which standing has been upheld for legislators claiming an
institutional injury. There, the Court held that state legislators
who had been locked in a tie vote that would have defeated the
State's ratification of a proposed federal constitutional
amendment, and who alleged that their votes were nullified when the
Lieutenant Governor broke the tie by casting his vote for
ratification, had "a plain, direct and adequate interest in
maintaining the effectiveness of their votes." Id., at 438.
In contrast, appellees have not alleged that they voted for a
specific bill, that there were sufficient votes to pass the bill,
and that the bill was nonetheless deemed defeated. In the vote on
the Act, their votes were given full effect; they simply lost that
vote. To uphold standing here would require a drastic extension of Coleman, even accepting appellees' argument that the Act has
changed the "meaning" and "effectiveness" of their vote on
appropriations bills, for there is a vast difference between the
level of vote nullification at issue in Coleman and the
abstract dilution ofinstitutional power appellees allege.
pp.821-826.

															(d) Historical practice cuts against appellees' position as
well. Several episodes in our history show that in analogous
confrontations between one or both Houses of Congress and the
Executive Branch, no suit was brought on the basis of claimed
injury to official authority or power. If appellees' claim were
sustained, presumably several Presidents would have had standing to
challenge the Tenure of Office Act, which prevented the removal of
a Presidential appointee without Congress' consent; the Attorney
General could have challenged the oneHouse veto provision because
it rendered his authority provisional rather than final; President
Ford could have challenged the Federal Election Campaign Act's
appointment provisions which were struck down in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S.
1 ; and a Member of Congress could have challenged the validity
of President Coolidge's pocket veto that was sustained in The
Pocket Veto Case, 279 U. S. 655 . While a
system granting such standing would not be irrational, our
Constitution's regime contemplates a more restrictive role for
Article III courts. See United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166 ,
192 (Powell, J., concurring). Pp.826-829.

															(e) Some importance must be attached to the fact that appellees
have not been authorized to represent their respective Houses in
this action, 813 and indeed both Houses actively oppose their suit. In addition,
the conclusion reached here neither deprives Members of Congress of
an adequate remedy-since they may repeal the Act or exempt
appropriations bills from its reach-nor forecloses the Act from
constitutional challenge by someone who suffers judicially
cognizable injury resulting from it. Pp. 829-830.

															956 F. Supp. 25, vacated and remanded.

															REHNQUIST, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
O'CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined.
SOUTER, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which
GINSBURG, J., joined, post, p. 830. STEVENS, J., post, p. 835, and BREYER, J., post, p. 838, filed
dissenting opinions.

															Acting Solicitor General Dellinger argued the cause for
appellants. With him on the briefs were Assistant Attorney General
Hunger, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, Malcolm L. Stewart, and
Douglas N. Letter.

															Alan B. Morrison argued the cause for appellees. With him on the
briefs were Lloyd N. Cutler, Louis R. Cohen, Charles J. Cooper,
Michael A. Carvin, David Thompson, and Michael Davidson.*

															CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.t

															The District Court for the District of Columbia declared the
Line Item Veto Act unconstitutional. On this direct appeal, we hold
that appellees lack standing to bring this suit,

															*Thomas B. Griffith, Morgan J. Frankel, Steven F. Huefner,
Geraldine R. Gennet, Kerry W Kircher, and Michael L. Stern filed a
brief for the United States Senate et al. as amici curiae urging
reversal.

															Briefs of amicus curiae urging affirmance were filed for
the Association of the Bar of the City of New York by David P.
Felsher, Louis A. Craco, Jr., and James F. Parver; and for David Schoenbrod et al. by Mr.
Schoenbrod, pro se, and Marci A. Hamilton, pro se. G. William Frick filed a brief for the American Petroleum
Institute as amicus curiae. tJUSTICE GINSBURG joins this opinion. 814 and therefore direct that the judgment of the District Court be
vacated and the complaint dismissed.

															I

															The appellees are six Members of Congress, four of whom served
as Senators and two of whom served as Congressmen in the 104th
Congress (1995-1996).1 On March 27, 1996, the Senate passed a bill
entitled the Line Item Veto Act by a vote of 69 to 31. All four
appellee Senators voted "nay." 142 Congo Rec. S2995. The next day,
the House of Representatives passed the identical bill by a vote of
232 to 177. Both appellee Congressmen voted "nay." Id., at
H2986. On April 4, 1996, the President signed the Line Item Veto
Act (Act) into law. Pub. L. 104-130, 110 Stat. 1200, codified at 2
U. S. C. § 691 et seq. (1994 ed., Supp. II). The Act went
into effect on January 1, 1997. See Pub. L. 104-130, § 5. The next
day, appellees filed a complaint in the District Court for the
District of Columbia against the two appellants, the Secretary of
the Treasury and the Director of the Office of Management and
Budget, alleging that the Act was unconstitutional.

															The provisions of the Act do not use the term "veto." Instead,
the President is given the authority to "cancel" certain spending
and tax benefit measures after he has signed them into law.
Specifically, the Act provides: "[T]he President may, with respect to any bill or joint
resolution that has been signed into law pursuant to Article I,
section 7, of the Constitution of the United States, cancel in
whole-(l) any dollar amount of discretionary budget authority; (2)
any item of new direct spending; or (3) any limited tax benefit; if
the President- IThree of the Senators-Robert Byrd, Carl Levin, and Daniel
Patrick Moynihan-are still Senators. The fourth-Mark
Hatfield-retired at the end of the 104th Congress. The two
Congressmen-David Skaggs and Henry Waxman-remain Congressmen. 815 "(A) determines that such cancellation will-(i) reduce the
Federal budget deficit; (ii) not impair any essential Government
functions; and (iii) not harm the national interest; and "(B) notifies the Congress of such cancellation by transmitting
a special message ... within five calendar days (excluding Sundays)
after the enactment of the law [to which the cancellation
applies]." § 691(a) (some indentations omitted). The President's "cancellation" under the Act takes effect when
the "special message" notifying Congress of the cancellation is
received in the House and Senate. With respect to dollar amounts of
"discretionary budget authority," a cancellation means "to
rescind." § 691e(4)(A). With respect to "new direct spending" items
or "limited tax benefit[s]," a cancellation means that the relevant
legal provision, legal obligation, or budget authority is
"prevent[ed] ... from having legal force or effect." §§ 691e(4)(B),
(C).

															The Act establishes expedited procedures in both Houses for the
consideration of "disapproval bills," § 691d, bills or joint
resolutions which, if enacted into law by the familiar procedures
set out in Article I, § 7, of the Constitution, would render the
President's cancellation "null and void," § 691b(a). "Disapproval
bills" may only be one sentence long and must read as follows after
the enacting clause: "That Congress

															The Act provides that "[a]ny Member of Congress or any
individual adversely affected by [this Act] may bring an action, in
the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, for
declaratory judgment and injunctive relief on 816 the ground that any provision of this part violates the
Constitution." § 692(a)(1). Appellees brought suit under this
provision, claiming that "[t]he Act violates Article I" of the
Constitution. Complaint , 17. Specifically, they alleged that the
Act "unconstitutionally expands the President's power," and
"violates the requirements of bicameral passage and presentment by
granting to the President, acting alone, the authority to 'cancel'
and thus repeal provisions of federal law." Ibid. They
alleged that the Act injured them "directly and concretely ... in
their official capacities" in three ways: "The Act ... (a) alter[s] the legal and practical effect of all
votes they may cast on bills containing such separately vetoable
items, (b) divest[s] the [appellees] of their constitutional role
in the repeal of legislation, and (c) alter[s] the constitutional
balance of powers between the Legislative and Executive Branches,
both with respect to measures containing separately vetoable items
and with respect to other matters coming before Congress." Id.,
, 14. Appellants moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, claiming
(among other things) that appellees lacked standing to sue and that
their claim was not ripe. Both sides also filed motions for summary
judgment on the merits. On April 10, 1997, the District Court (i)
denied appellants' motion to dismiss, holding that appellees had
standing to bring this suit and that their claim was ripe, and (ii)
granted appellees' summary judgment motion, holding that the Act is
unconstitutional. 956 F. Supp. 25. As to standing, the court noted
that the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia "has
repeatedly recognized Members' standing to challenge measures that
affect their constitutionally prescribed lawmaking powers." Id., at 30 (citing, e. g., Michel v. Anderson, 14 F.3d
623 ,625 (CADC 1994); Moore v. U. S. House of
Representatives, 733 F.2d
946 , 950-952 (CADC 1984)). See also 956 817 F. Supp., at 31 ("[T]he Supreme Court has never endorsed the
[Court of Appeals'] analysis of standing in such cases"). The court
held that appellees' claim that the Act "dilute[d] their Article I
voting power" was sufficient to confer Article III standing:
"[Appellees'] votes mean something different from what they meant
before, for good or ill, and [appellees] who perceive it as the
latter are thus 'injured' in a constitutional sense whenever an
appropriations bill comes up for a vote, whatever the President
ultimately does with it .... Under the Act the dynamic of lawmaking
is fundamentally altered. Compromises and trade-offs by
individuallawmakers must take into account the President's
item-by-item cancellation power looming over the end product." Ibid. The court held that appellees' claim was ripe even though the
President had not yet used the "cancellation" authority granted him
under the Act: "Because [appellees] now find themselves in a
position of unanticipated and unwelcome subservience to the
President before and after they vote on appropriations bills,
Article III is satisfied, and this Court may accede to Congress'
directive to address the constitutional cloud over the Act as
swiftly as possible." Id., at 32 (referring to § 692(a)(1),
the section of the Act granting Members of Congress the right to
challenge the Act's constitutionality in court). On the merits, the
court held that the Act violated the Presentment Clause, Art. I, §
7, cl. 2, and constituted an unconstitutional delegation of
legislative power to the President. 956 F. Supp., at 33, 35,
37-38.

															The Act provides for a direct, expedited appeal to this Court. §
692(b) (direct appeal to Supreme Court); § 692(c) ("It shall be the
duty of ... the Supreme Court of the United States to advance on
the docket and to expedite to the greatest possible extent the
disposition of any [suit challenging the Act's constitutionality]
brought under [§ 3(a) of the Act]"). On April 18, eight days after
the District Court issued its order, appellants filed a
jurisdictional statement asking us to note probable jurisdiction,
and on April 21, appellees filed a 818 memorandum in response agreeing that we should note probable
jurisdiction. On April 23, we did so. 520 U. S. 1194 (1997). We
established an expedited briefing schedule and heard oral argument
on May 27.2 We now hold that appellees have no standing to bring
this suit, and therefore direct that the judgment of the District
Court be vacated and the complaint dismissed.

															II

															Under Article III, § 2, of the Constitution, the federal courts
have jurisdiction over this dispute between appellants and
appellees only if it is a "case" or "controversy." This is a
"bedrock requirement." Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464 ,
471 (1982). As we said in Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare
Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26 , 37
(1976):

															"No principle is more fundamental to the judiciary's proper role
in our system of government than the constitutional limitation of
federal-court jurisdiction to actual cases or controversies."

															One element of the case-or-controversy requirement is that
appellees, based on their complaint, must establish that they have
standing to sue. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555 ,
561 (1992) (plaintiff bears burden of establishing standing). The
standing inquiry focuses on whether the plaintiff is the proper
party to bring this suit, Simon, supra, at 38, although that
inquiry "often turns on the nature and source of the claim
asserted," Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490 , 500
(1975). To meet the standing requirements of Article III, "[a]
plaintiff must allege personal injury fairly traceable to
the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be
redressed by the requested relief." Allen v. Wright,
468 2 The House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (made up of the
Speaker, the Majority Leader, the Minority Leader, and the two
Whips) and the Senate filed a joint brief as amici curiae urging that the District Court be reversed on the merits. Their
brief states that they express no position as to appellees'
standing. 819 u. S. 737, 751 (1984) (emphasis added). For our purposes, the
italicized words in this quotation from Allen are the key
ones. We have consistently stressed that a plaintiff's complaint
must establish that he has a "personal stake" in the alleged
dispute, and that the alleged injury suffered is particularized as
to him. See, e. g., Lujan, supra, at 560-561, and n. 1 (to
have standing, the plaintiff must have suffered a "particularized"
injury, which means that "the injury must affect the plaintiff in a
personal and individual way"); Bender v. Williamsport
Area School Dist., 475 U. S. 534 , 543-544
(1986) (school board member who "has no personal stake in the
outcome of the litigation" has no standing); Simon, supra, at 39 ("The necessity that the plaintiff who seeks to invoke
judicial power stand to profit in some personal interest remains an
Art. III requirement").

															We have also stressed that the alleged injury must be legally
and judicially cognizable. This requires, among other things, that
the plaintiff have suffered "an invasion of a legally protected
interest which is ... concrete and particularized," Lujan,
supra, at 560, and that the dispute is "traditionally thought
to be capable of resolution through the judicial process," Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83 , 97 (1968).
See also Allen, 468 U. S., at 752 ("Is the injury too
abstract, or otherwise not appropriate, to be considered judicially
cognizable ?").

															We have always insisted on strict compliance with this
jurisdictional standing requirement. See, e. g., ibid. (under Article III, "federal courts may exercise power only 'in the
last resort, and as a necessity''') (quoting Chicago & Grand Trunk R. Co. v. Wellman, 143 U. S. 339 , 345
(1892)); Muskrat v. United States, 219 U. S. 346 , 356 (1911)
("[F]rom its earliest history this [C]ourt has consistently
declined to exercise any powers other than those which are strictly
judicial in their nature"). And our standing inquiry has been
especially rigorous when reaching the merits of the dispute would
force us to decide whether an action taken by one 820 of the other two branches of the Federal Government was
unconstitutional. See, e. g., Bender, supra, at 542; Valley Forge, supra, at 473-474. As we said in Allen,
supra, at 752, "the law of Art. III standing is built on a
single basic idea-the idea of separation of powers." In the light
of this overriding and time-honored concern about keeping the
Judiciary's power within its proper constitutional sphere,3 we must
put aside the natural urge to proceed directly to the merits of
this important dispute and to "settle" it for the sake of
convenience and efficiency. Instead, we must carefully inquire as
to whether appellees have met their burden of establishing that
their claimed injury is personal, particularized, concrete, and
otherwise judicially cognizable.

															III

															We have never had occasion to rule on the question of
legislative standing presented here.4 In Powell v. McCormack, 395
U. S. 486 , 496, 512-514 (1969), we held that a Member of

															3 It is settled that Congress cannot erase Article Ill's
standing requirements by statutorily granting the right to sue to a
plaintiff who would not otherwise have standing. Gladstone,
Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U. S. 91, 100
(1979). We acknowledge, though, that Congress' decision to grant a
particular plaintiff the right to challenge an Act's
constitutionality (as here, see § 692(a)(1), supra, at
815-816) eliminates any prudential standing limitations and
significantly lessens the risk of unwanted conflict with the
Legislative Branch when that plaintiff brings suit. See, e. g., Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S. 154 , 164-166
(1997).

															4 Over strong dissent, the Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit has held that Members of Congress may have
standing when (as here) they assert injury to their institutional
power as legislators. See, e. g., Kennedy v. Sampson, 511 F.2d
430 , 435-436 (CADC 1974); Moore v. United States
House of Representatives, 733 F.2d
946 , 951 (CADC 1984); id., at 956 (Scalia, J.,
concurring in result); Barnes v. Kline, 759 F.2d
21 , 28-29 (CADC 1985); id., at 41 (Bork, J.,
dissenting). But see Holtzman v. Schlesinger, 484 F.2d
1307 , 1315 (CA2 1973) (Member of Congress has no
standing to challenge constitutionality of American military
operations in Vietnam war); Harrington v. Schlesinger, 528 F.2d
455 , 459 (CA4 1975) (same). 821 Congress' constitutional challenge to his exclusion from the
House of Representatives (and his consequent loss of salary)
presented an Article III case or controversy. But Powell does not help appellees. First, appellees have not been singled out
for specially unfavorable treatment as opposed to other Members of
their respective bodies. Their claim is that the Act causes a type
of institutional injury (the diminution of legislative power),
which necessarily damages all Members of Congress and both Houses
of Congress equally. See n. 7, infra. Second, appellees do
not claim that they have been deprived of something to which they personally are entitled-such as their seats as Members of
Congress after their constituents had elected them. Rather,
appellees' claim of standing is based on a loss of political power,
not loss of any private right, which would make the injury more
concrete. Unlike the injury claimed by Congressman Adam Clayton
Powell, the injury claimed by the Members of Congress here is not
claimed in any private capacity but solely because they are Members
of Congress. See Complaint'14 (purporting to sue "in their official
capacities"). If one of the Members were to retire tomorrow, he
would no longer have a claim; the claim would be possessed by his
successor instead. The claimed injury thus runs (in a sense) with
the Member's seat, a seat which the Member holds (it may quite
arguably be said) as trustee for his constituents, not as a
prerogative of personal power. See The Federalist No. 62, p. 378
(J. Madison) (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) ("It is a misfortune incident
to republican government, though in a less degree than to other
governments, that those who administer it may forget their
obligations to their constituents and prove unfaithful to their
important trust").

															The one case in which we have upheld standing for legislators
(albeit state legislators) claiming an institutional injury
is Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433 (1939).
Appellees, relying heavily on this case, claim that they, like the
state legislators in Coleman, "have a plain, direct and
adequate interest 822 in maintaining the effectiveness of their votes," id., at 438,
sufficient to establish standing. In Coleman, 20 of Kansas'
40 State Senators voted not to ratify the proposed "Child Labor
Amendment" to the Federal Constitution. With the vote deadlocked 20
to 20, the amendment ordinarily would not have been ratified.
However, the State's Lieutenant Governor, the presiding officer of
the State Senate, cast a deciding vote in favor of the amendment,
and it was deemed ratified (after the State House of
Representatives voted to ratify it). The 20 State Senators who had
voted against the amendment, joined by a 21st State Senator and
three State House Members, filed an action in the Kansas Supreme
Court seeking a writ of mandamus that would compel the appropriate
state officials to recognize that the legislature had not in fact
ratified the amendment. That court held that the members of the
legislature had standing to bring their mandamus action, but ruled
against them on the merits. See id., at 436-437.

															This Court affirmed. By a vote of 5-4, we held that the members
of the legislature had standing.5 In explaining our holding, we
repeatedly emphasized that if these legislators (who were suing as
a bloc) were correct on the merits, then their votes not to ratify
the amendment were deprived of all validity: "Here, the plaintiffs include twenty senators, whose votes
against ratification have been overridden and vir- 5 Chief Justice Hughes wrote an opinion styled "the opinion of
the Court." Coleman, 307 U. S., at 435. Four Justices concurred in
the judgment, partially on the ground that the legislators lacked
standing. See id., at 456-457 (opinion of Black, J., joined by
Roberts, Frankfurter, and Douglas, JJ.); id., at 460 (opinion of
Frankfurter, J., joined by Roberts, Black, and Douglas, JJ.). Two
Justices dissented on the merits. See id., at 470 (opinion of
Butler, J., joined by McReynolds, J.). Thus, even though there were
only two Justices who joined Chief Justice Hughes' opinion on the
merits, it is apparent that the two dissenting Justices joined his
opinion as to the standing discussion. Otherwise, Justice
Frankfurter's opinion denying standing would have been the
controlling opinion. 823 tually held for naught although if they are right in
their contentions their votes would have been sufficient to
defeat ratification. We think that these senators have a plain,
direct and adequate interest in maintaining the effectiveness of
their votes." Id., at 438 (emphasis added). "[T]he twenty senators were not only qualified to vote on the
question of ratification but their votes, if the Lieutenant
Governor were excluded as not being a part of the legislature for
that purpose, would have been decisive in defeating the
ratifying resolution." Id., at 441 (emphasis added). "[WJe find no departure from principle in recognizing in the
instant case that at least the twenty senators whose votes, if their contention were sustained, would have been sufficient
to defeat the resolution ratifying the proposed constitutional
amendment, have an interest in the controversy which, treated by
the state court as a basis for entertaining and deciding the
federal questions, is sufficient to give the Court jurisdiction to
review that decision." Id., at 446 (emphasis added). It is obvious, then, that our holding in Coleman stands
(at most, see n. 8, infra) for the proposition that
legislators whose votes would have been sufficient to defeat (or
enact) a specific legislative Act have standing to sue if that
legislative action goes into effect (or does not go into effect),
on the ground that their votes have been completely nullified.6

															6 See also Bender v. Williamsport Area School
Dist., 475 U. S.
534 ,544545, n. 7 (1986) (in dicta, suggesting hypothetically
that if state law authorized a school board to take action only by
unanimous consent, if a school board member voted against a
particular action, and if the board nonetheless took the action,
the board member "might claim that he was legally entitled to
protect 'the effectiveness of [his] vot[e],' Coleman[, 307
U. S., at 438,] ... [b]ut in that event [he] would have to allege
that his vote was diluted or rendered nugatory under state
law"). 824 It should be equally obvious that appellees' claim does not fall
within our holding in Coleman, as thus understood. They have not
alleged that they voted for a specific bill, that there were
sufficient votes to pass the bill, and that the bill was
nonetheless deemed defeated. In the vote on the Act, their votes
were given full effect. They simply lost that vote.7 Nor can they
allege that the Act will nullify their votes in the future in the
same way that the votes of the Coleman legislators had been
nullified. In the future, a majority of Senators and Congressmen
can pass or reject appropriations bills; the Act has no effect on
this process. In addition, a majority of Senators and Congressmen
can vote to repeal the Act, or to exempt a given appropriations
bill (or a given provision in an appropriations bill) from the Act;
again, the Act has no effect on this process. Coleman thus provides
little meaningful precedent for appellees' argument.8

															7 Just as appellees cannot show that their vote was denied or
nullified as in Coleman (in the sense that a bill they voted for
would have become law if their vote had not been stripped of its
validity), so are they unable to show that their vote was denied or
nullified in a discriminatory manner (in the sense that their vote
was denied its full validity in relation to the votes of their
colleagues). Thus, the various hypotheticals offered by appellees
in their briefs and discussed during oral argument have no
applicability to this case. See Reply Brief for Appellees 6
(positing hypothetical law in which "first-term Members were not
allowed to vote on appropriations bills," or in which "every Member was disqualified on grounds of partiality from voting on
major federal projects in his or her own district"); Tr. of Oral
Arg. 17 ("QUESTION: But [Congress] might have passed a statute that
said the Senators from Iowa on hog-farming matters should have only
a half-a-vote. Would they have standing to challenge that?").

															8 Since we hold that Coleman may be distinguished from the
instant case on this ground, we need not decide whether Coleman may
also be distinguished in other ways. For instance, appellants have
argued that Coleman has no applicability to a similar suit brought
in federal court, since that decision depended on the fact that the
Kansas Supreme Court "treated" the senators' interest in their
votes "as a basis for entertaining and deciding the federal
questions." 307 U. S., at 446. They have also 825 Nevertheless, appellees rely heavily on our statement in Coleman
that the Kansas senators had "a plain, direct and adequate interest
in maintaining the effectiveness of their votes." Appellees claim
that this statement applies to them because their votes on future
appropriations bills (assuming a majority of Congress does not
decide to exempt those bills from the Act) will be less "effective"
than before, and that the "meaning" and "integrity" of their vote
has changed. Brief for Appellees 24, 28. The argument goes as
follows. Before the Act, Members of Congress could be sure that
when they voted for, and Congress passed, an appropriations bill
that included funds for Project X, one of two things would happen:
(i) the bill would become law and all of the projects listed in the
bill would go into effect, or (ii) the bill would not become law
and none of the projects listed in the bill would go into effect.
Either way, a vote for the appropriations bill meant a vote for a
package of projects that were inextricably linked. After the Act,
however, a vote for an appropriations bill that includes Project X
means something different. Now, in addition to the two
possibilities listed above, there is a third option: The bill will
become law and then the President will "cancel" Project X.9

															Even taking appellees at their word about the change in the
"meaning" and "effectiveness" of their vote for appropriations
bills which are subject to the Act, we think their argument pulls
Coleman too far from its moorings. Appellees'

															argued that Coleman has no applicability to a similar suit
brought by federal legislators, since the separation-of-powers
concerns present in such a suit were not present in Coleman, and
since any federalism concerns were eliminated by the Kansas Supreme
Court's decision to take jurisdiction over the case.

															9 Although Congress could reinstate Project X through a
"disapproval bill," it would assumedly take two-thirds of both
Houses to do so, since the President could be expected to veto the
Project X "disapproval bilL" But see Robinson, Public Choice
Speculations on the Item Veto, 74 Va. L. Rev. 403, 411-412 (1988)
(political costs that President would suffer in important
congressional districts might limit use of line-item veto). 826 use of the word "effectiveness" to link their argument to
Coleman stretches the word far beyond the sense in which the
Coleman opinion used it. There is a vast difference between the
level of vote nullification at issue in Coleman and the abstract
dilution of institutional legislative power that is alleged here.
To uphold standing here would require a drastic extension of
Coleman. We are unwilling to take that step.

															Not only do appellees lack support from precedent, but
historical practice appears to cut against them as well. It is
evident from several episodes in our history that in analogous
confrontations between one or both Houses of Congress and the
Executive Branch, no suit was brought on the basis of claimed
injury to official authority or power. The Tenure of Office Act,
passed by Congress over the veto of President Andrew Johnson in
1867, was a thorn in the side of succeeding Presidents until it was
finally repealed at the behest of President Grover Cleveland in
1887. See generally W. Rehnquist, Grand Inquests: The Historic
Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson
210235, 260-268 (1992). It provided that an official whose
appointment to an Executive Branch office required confirmation by
the Senate could not be removed without the consent of the Senate.
14 Stat. 430, ch. 154. In 1868, Johnson removed his Secretary of
War, Edwin M. Stanton. Within a week, the House of Representatives
impeached Johnson. 1 Trial of Andrew Johnson, President of the
United States, Before the Senate of the United States on
Impeachment by the House of Representatives for High Crimes and
Misdemeanors 4 (1868). One of the principal charges against him was
that his removal of Stanton violated the Tenure of Office Act. Id., at 6-8. At the conclusion of his trial before the
Senate, Johnson was acquitted by one vote. 2 id., at 487, 496-498.
Surely Johnson had a stronger claim of diminution of his official
power as a result of the Tenure of Office Act than do the appellees
in the present case. Indeed, if their 827 claim were sustained, it would appear that President Johnson
would have had standing to challenge the Tenure of Office Act
before he ever thought about firing a cabinet member, simply on the
grounds that it altered the calculus by which he would nominate
someone to his cabinet. Yet if the federal courts had entertained
an action to adjudicate the constitutionality of the Tenure of
Office Act immediately after its passage in 1867, they would have
been improperly and unnecessarily plunged into the bitter political
battle being waged between the President and Congress.

															Succeeding Presidents-Ulysses S. Grant and Grover
Cleveland-urged Congress to repeal the Tenure of Office Act, and
Cleveland's plea was finally heeded in 1887. 24 Stat. 500, ch. 353.
It occurred to neither of these Presidents that they might
challenge the Act in an Article III court. Eventually, in a suit
brought by a plaintiff with traditional Article III standing, this
Court did have the opportunity to pass on the constitutionality of
the provision contained in the Tenure of Office Act. A sort of
mini-Tenure of Office Act covering only the Post Office Department
had been enacted in 1872, 17 Stat. 284, ch. 335, § 2, and it
remained on the books after the Tenure of Office Act's repeal in
1887. In the last days of the Woodrow Wilson administration, Albert
Burleson, Wilson's Postmaster General, came to believe that Frank
Myers, the Postmaster in Portland, Oregon, had committed fraud in
the course of his official duties. When Myers refused to resign,
Burleson, acting at the direction of the President, removed him.
Myers sued in the Court of Claims to recover lost salary. In Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 (1926), more
than half a century after Johnson's impeachment, this Court held
that Congress could not require senatorial consent to the removal
of a Postmaster who had been appointed by the President with the
consent of the Senate. Id., at 106-107, 173, 176. In the
course of its opinion, the Court expressed the view that the
original Tenure of Office Act was unconstitutional. Id., at
176. See also id., 828 at 173 ("This Court has, since the Tenure of Office Act,
manifested an earnest desire to avoid a final settlement of the
question until it should be inevitably presented, as it is
here").

															If the appellees in the present case have standing, presumably
President Wilson, or Presidents Grant and Cleveland before him,
would likewise have had standing, and could have challenged the law
preventing the removal of a Presidential appointee without the
consent of Congress. Similarly, in INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919 (1983), the Attorney General would have had standing to challenge
the one-House veto provision because it rendered his authority
provisional rather than final. By parity of reasoning, President
Gerald Ford could have sued to challenge the appointment provisions
of the Federal Election Campaign Act which were struck down in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1 (1976) (per
curiam), and a Member of Congress could have challenged the
validity of President Coolidge's pocket veto that was sustained in The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U. S. 655 (1929).

															There would be nothing irrational about a system that granted
standing in these cases; some European constitutional courts
operate under one or another variant of such a regime. See, e. g., Favoreu, Constitutional Review in Europe, in
Constitutionalism and Rights 38, 41 (L. Henkin & A. Rosenthal
eds. 1990); Wright Sheive, Central and Eastern European
Constitutional Courts and the Antimajoritarian Objection to
Judicial Review, 26 Law & Pol'y Int'l Bus. 1201, 1209 (1995);
A. Stone, The Birth of Judicial Politics in France 232 (1992); D.
Kommers, Judicial Politics in West Germany: A Study of the Federal
Constitutional Court 106 (1976). But it is obviously not the regime
that has obtained under our Constitution to date. Our regime
contemplates a more restricted role for Article III courts, well
expressed by Justice Powell in his concurring opinion in United
States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166 (1974): 829 "The irreplaceable value of the power articulated by Mr. Chief
Justice Marshall [in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137
(1803),] lies in the protection it has afforded the constitutional
rights and liberties of individual citizens and minority groups
against oppressive or discriminatory government action. It is this
role, not some amorphous general supervision of the operations of
government, that has maintained public esteem for the federal
courts and has permitted the peaceful coexistence of the
countermajoritarian implications of judicial review and the
democratic principles upon which our Federal Government in the
final analysis rests." Id., at 192. IV

															In sum, appellees have alleged no injury to themselves as
individuals (contra, Powell), the institutional injury they
allege is wholly abstract and widely dispersed (contra, Cole man), and their attempt to litigate this dispute at this
time and in this form is contrary to historical experience. We
attach some importance to the fact that appellees have not been
authorized to represent their respective Houses of Congress in this
action, and indeed both Houses actively oppose their suit.lO See n.
2, supra. We also note that our conclusion neither deprives
Members of Congress of an adequate remedy (since they may repeal
the Act or exempt appropriations bills from its reach), nor
forecloses the Act from constitutional challenge (by someone who
suffers judicially cognizable injury as a result of the Act).
Whether the case would

															10 Cf. Bender, 475 U. S., at 544 ("Generally speaking,
members of collegial bodies do not have standing to perfect an
appeal the body itself has declined to take"); United States v. Ballin, 144
U. S. 1 ,7 (1892) ("The two houses of Congress are legislative
bodies representing larger constituencies. Power is not vested in
anyone individual, but in the aggregate of the members who compose
the body, and its action is not the action of any separate member
or number of members, but the action of the body as a whole"). 830 SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment

															be different if any of these circumstances were different we
need not now decide.

															We therefore hold that these individual members of Congress do
not have a sufficient "personal stake" in this dispute and have not
alleged a sufficiently concrete injury to have established Article
III standing.ll The judgment of the District Court is vacated, and
the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss the complaint for
lack of jurisdiction.

															It is so ordered.

															JUSTICE SOUTER, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins, concurring in
the judgment.

															Appellees claim that the Line Item Veto Act, Pub. L. 104130, 110
Stat. 1200, codified at 2 U. S. C. § 691 et seq. (1994 ed.,
Supp. II), is unconstitutional because it grants the President
power, which Article I vests in Congress, to repeal a provision of
federal law. As JUSTICE STEVENS points out, appellees essentially
claim that, by granting the President power to repeal statutes, the
Act injures them by depriving them of their official role in voting
on the provisions that become law. See post, at 836-837.
Under our precedents, it is fairly debatable whether this injury is
sufficiently "personal" and "concrete" to satisfy the requirements
of Article IILl

															There is, first, difficulty in applying the rule that an injury
on which standing is predicated be personal, not official. If

															11 In addition, it is far from clear that this injury is "fairly
traceable" to appellants, as our precedents require, since the
alleged cause of appellees' injury is not appellants' exercise of
legislative power but the actions of their own colleagues in
Congress in passing the Act. Cf. Holtzman v. Schlesinger, 484 F.2d
1307 , 1315 (CA2 1973) ("Representative Holtzman ... has
not been denied any right to vote on [the war in Cambodia] by any
action of the defendants [Executive Branch officials] .... The fact
that her vote was ineffective was due to the contrary votes of her
colleagues and not the defendants herein").

															1 While Congress may, by authorizing suit for particular
parties, remove any prudential standing barriers, as it has in this
case, see ante, at 820, n. 3, it may not reduce the Article
III minimums. 831 our standing doctrine recognized this as a distinction with a
dispositive effect, the injury claimed would not qualify: the Court
is certainly right in concluding that appellees sue not in personal
capacities, but as holders of seats in the Congress. See ante, at 821. And yet the significance of this distinction
is not so straightforward. In Braxton County Court v. West Virginia ex rel. State Tax Comm'rs, 208 U. S. 192 (1908), it
is true, we dismissed a challenge by a county court to a state tax
law for lack of jurisdiction, broadly stating that" 'the interest
of a [party seeking relief] in this court should be a personal and
not an official interest,'" id., at 198 (quoting Smith v. Indiana, 191
U. S. 138 , 149 (1903)); accord, Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee
Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123 , 151 (1951)
(Frankfurter, J., concurring). But the Court found Braxton
County "inapplicable" to a challenge by a group of state
legislators in Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433 , 438, and
n. 3 (1939), and found the legislators had standing even though
they claimed no injury but a deprivation of official voting power,
id., at 437-446.2 Thus, it is at least arguable that the official
nature of the harm here does not preclude standing.

															Nor is appellees' injury so general that, under our case law,
they clearly cannot satisfy the requirement of concreteness. On the
one hand, appellees are not simply claiming

															2 As appellants note, it is also possible that the impairment of
certain official powers may support standing for Congress, or one
House thereof, to seek the aid of the Federal Judiciary. See
Brieffor Appellants 26, n. 14 (citing McGrain v. Daugherty, 273
U. S. 135 , 174 (1927)). And, as appellants concede, see Brief
for Appellants 20-21, 25-28, an injury to official authority may
support standing for a government itself or its duly authorized
agents, see, e. g., Diamond v. Charles, 476 U. S. 54 , 62 (1986)
(noting that "a State has standing to defend the constitutionality
of its statute" in federal court); ICC v. Oregon-Washington R. & Nav. Co., 288 U. S. 14 , 25-27 (1933)
(explaining that a federal agency had standing to appeal, because
an official or an agency could be designated to defend the
interests of the Federal Government in federal court); Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433 , 441-445
(1939) (discussing cases). 832 SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment

															harm to their interest in having government abide by the
Constitution, which would be shared to the same extent by the
public at large and thus provide no basis for suit, see, e. g.,
Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for
Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464 , 482483
(1982); Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the
War, 418 U. S.
208 , 217, 220 (1974); Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U. S. 126 ,
129-130 (1922). Instead, appellees allege that the Act deprives
them of an element of their legislative power; as a factual matter
they have a more direct and tangible interest in the preservation
of that power than the general citizenry has. Cf. Coleman,
supra, at 438 (concluding that state legislators had a "plain"
and "direct" interest in the effectiveness of their votes); see
also Hendrick v. Walters, 865 P. 2d 1232, 1236-1238
(Okla. 1993) (concluding that a legislator had a personal interest
in a suit to determine whether the Governor had lawfully assumed
office due to substantial interaction between the Governor and
legislature); Colorado General Assembly v. Lamm, 704
P. 2d 1371, 1376-1378 (Colo. 1985) (concluding that the legislature
had suffered an injury in fact as a result of the Governor's
exercise of his line item veto power). On the other hand, the
alleged, continuing deprivation of federal legislative power is not
as specific or limited as the nullification of the decisive votes
of a group of legislators in connection with a specific item of
legislative consideration in Coleman, being instead shared
by all the members of the official class who could suffer that
injury, the Members of Congress.3

															Because it is fairly debatable whether appellees' injury is
sufficiently personal and concrete to give them standing, it
behooves us to resolve the question under more general

															3 As the Court explains, Coleman may well be
distinguishable on the further ground that it involved a suit by
state legislators that did not implicate either the
separation-of-powers concerns raised in this case or corresponding
federalism concerns (since the Kansas Supreme Court had exercised
jurisdiction to decide a federal issue). See ante, at
824-825, n.8. 833 separation-of-powers principles underlying our standing
requirements. See Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737 , 752
(1984); United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166 , 188-197
(1974) (Powell, J., concurring). While "our constitutional
structure [does not] requir[e] ... that the Judicial Branch shrink
from a confrontation with the other two coequal branches," Valley Forge Christian College, 454 U. S., at 474, we have
cautioned that respect for the separation of powers requires the
Judicial Branch to exercise restraint in deciding constitutional
issues by resolving those implicating the powers of the three
branches of Government as a "last resort," see ibid. The
counsel of restraint in this case begins with the fact that a
dispute involving only officials, and the official interests of
those, who serve in the branches of the National Government lies
far from the model of the traditional common-law cause of action at
the conceptual core of the case-or-controversy requirement, see Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm., supra, at 150, 152
(Frankfurter, J., concurring). Although the contest here is not
formally between the political branches (since Congress passed the
bill augmenting Presidential power and the President signed it), it
is in substance an interbranch controversy about calibrating the
legislative and executive powers, as well as an intrabranch dispute
between segments of Congress itself. Intervention in such a
controversy would risk damaging the public confidence that is vital
to the functioning of the Judicial Branch, cf. Valley Forge
Christian College, supra, at 474 (quoting Richardson,
supra, at 188 (Powell, J., concurring)), by embroiling the
federal courts in a power contest nearly at the height of its
political tension.

															While it is true that a suit challenging the constitutionality
of this Act brought by a party from outside the Federal Government
would also involve the Court in resolving the dispute over the
allocation of power between the political branches, it would expose
the Judicial Branch to a lesser risk. Deciding a suit to vindicate
an interest outside the 834 SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment

															Government raises no specter of judicial readiness to enlist on
one side of a political tug-of-war, since "the propriety of such
action by a federal court has been recognized since Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137 (1803)." Valley Forge Christian
College, supra, at 473-474. And just as the presence of a party
beyond the Government places the Judiciary at some remove from the
political forces, the need to await injury to such a plaintiff
allows the courts some greater separation in the time between the
political resolution and the judicial review. "[B]y connecting the censureship of the laws with the private
interests of members of the community, ... the legislation is
protected from wanton assailants, and from the daily aggressions of
party-spirit." 1 A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America 105
(Schoken ed. 1961). The virtue of waiting for a private suit is only confirmed by
the certainty that another suit can come to us. The parties agree,
and I see no reason to question, that if the President "cancels" a
conventional spending or tax provision pursuant to the Act, the
putative beneficiaries of that provision will likely suffer a
cognizable injury and thereby have standing under Article III. See
Brief for Appellants 19-20, and n. 10; Brief for Appellees 32-33.
By depriving beneficiaries of the money to which they would
otherwise be entitled, a cancellation would produce an injury that
is "actual," "personal and individual," and involve harm to a
"legally protected interest," Lujan v. Defenders of
Wildlife, 504 U.
S. 555 , 560, and n. 1 (1992) (internal quotation marks
omitted); assuming the canceled provision would not apply equally
to the entire public, the injury would be "concrete," id., at 560,
573-574; and it would be "fairly trace[able] to the challenged
action of the" executive officials involved in the cancellation,
id., at 560 (internal quotation marks omitted), as well as probably
"redress[able] by a favorable decision," id., at 561 (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted). See, e. g., 835 Train v. City of New York, 420 U. S. 35 , 40 (1975)
(suit by City of New York seeking proper allotment of federal
funds). While the Court has declined to lower standing requirements
simply because no one would otherwise be able to litigate a claim,
see Valley Forge Christian College, supra, at 489; Schlesinger, 418 U. S., at 227; United States v. Richardson, supra, at 179, the certainty of a plaintiff who
obviously would have standing to bring a suit to court after the
politics had at least subsided from a full boil is a good reason to
resolve doubts about standing against the plaintiff invoking an
official interest, cf. Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm., 341
U. S., at 153-154 (Frankfurter, J., concurring) (explaining that
the availability of another person to bring suit may affect the
standing calculus).

															I therefore conclude that appellees' alleged injuries are
insufficiently personal and concrete to satisfy Article III
standing requirements of personal and concrete harm. Since this
would be so in any suit under the conditions here, I accordingly
find no cognizable injury to appellees.

															JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.

															The Line Item Veto Act purports to establish a procedure for the
creation of laws that are truncated versions of bills that have
been passed by the Congress and presented to the President for
signature. If the procedure is valid, it will deny every Senator
and every Representative any opportunity to vote for or against the
truncated measure that survives the exercise of the President's
cancellation authority. Because the opportunity to cast such votes
is a right guaranteed by the text of the Constitution, I think it
clear that the persons who are deprived of that right by the Act
have standing to challenge its constitutionality. Moreover, because
the impairment of that constitutional right has an immediate impact
on their official powers, in my judgment they need not wait until
after the President has exercised his cancellation authority to
bring suit. Finally, the same reason 836 that the appellees have standing provides a sufficient basis for
concluding that the statute is unconstitutional.

															Article I, § 7, of the Constitution provides that every Senator
and every Representative has the power to vote on "Every Bill ...
before it become a law" either as a result of its having been
signed by the President or as a result of its "Reconsideration" in
the light of the President's "Objections." 1 In contrast, the Line
Item Veto Act establishes a mechanism by which bills passed by both
Houses of Congress will eventually produce laws that have not
passed either House of Congress and that have not been voted on by
any Senator or Representative.

															Assuming for the moment that this procedure is constitutionally
permissible, and that the President will from time to time exercise
the power to cancel portions of a justenacted law, it follows that
the statute deprives every Senator and every Representative of the
right to vote for or against measures that may become law. The
appellees cast their challenge to the constitutionality of the Act
in a slightly different way. Their complaint asserted that the Act
"alteres] the legal and practical effect of all votes they may
cast

															1 The full text of the relevant paragraph of § 7 provides:

															"Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives
and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the
President of the United States: If he approve he shall sign it, but
if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in
which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at
large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such
Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the
Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other
House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved
by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such
Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and
Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill
shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any
Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days
(Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the
Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless
the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case
it shall not be a Law." U. S. Const., Art. I, § 7. 837 on bills containing such separately vetoable items" and
"divest[s] the[m] of their constitutional role in the repeal of
legislation." Complaint' 14. These two claimed injuries are at base
the same as the injury on which I rest my analysis. The reason the
complaint frames the issues in the way that it does is related to
the Act's technical operation. Under the Act, the President would
receive and sign a bill exactly as it passed both Houses, and would
exercise his partial veto power only after the law had been
enacted. See 2 U. S. C. § 691(a) (1994 ed., Supp. II). The
appellees thus articulated their claim as a combination of the
diminished effect of their initial vote and the circumvention of
their right to participate in the subsequent repeal. Whether one
looks at the claim from this perspective, or as a simple denial of
their right to vote on the precise text that will ultimately become
law, the basic nature of the injury caused by the Act is the
same.

															In my judgment, the deprivation of this right-essential to the
legislator's office-constitutes a sufficient injury to provide
every Member of Congress with standing to challenge the
constitutionality of the statute. If the dilution of an individual
voter's power to elect representatives provides that voter with
standing-as it surely does, see, e. g., Baker v. Carr, 369 U.
S. 186 , 204-208 (1962)-the deprivation of the right possessed
by each Senator and Representative to vote for or against the
precise text of any bill before it becomes law must also be a
sufficient injury to create Article III standing for them.2
Although, as JUSTICE BREYER demonstrates, see post, at
840-843 (dissenting opinion), the majority's attempt to distinguish Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433 , 438
(1939), is not persuasive, I need not rely on that case to

															2 The appellees' assertion of their right to vote on legislation
is not simply a generalized interest in the proper administration
of government, cf. Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737 , 754
(1984), and the legislators' personal interest in the ability to
exercise their constitutionally ensured power to vote on laws is
certainly distinct from the interest that an individual citizen
challenging the Act might assert. 838 support my view that the Members of Congress have standing to
sue in this instance. In Coleman, the legislators complained
that their votes were denied full effectiveness. See ibid.; see also Dyer v. Blair, 390 F. Supp. 1291, 1297, n.
12 (ND Ill. 1975). But the law at issue here does not simply alter
the effect of the legislators' votes; it denies them any
opportunity at all to cast votes for or against the truncated
versions of the bills presented to the President.3

															Moreover, the appellees convincingly explain how the immediate,
constant threat of the partial veto power has a palpable effect on
their current legislative choices. See Brief for Appellees 23-25,
29-31. Because the Act has this immediate and important impact on
the powers of Members of Congress, and on the manner in which they
undertake their legislative responsibilities, they need not await
an exercise of the President's cancellation authority to institute
the litigation that the statute itself authorizes. See 2 U. S. C. §
692(a)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. II).

															Given the fact that the authority at stake is granted by the
plain and unambiguous text of Article I, it is equally clear to me
that the statutory attempt to eliminate it is invalid.

															Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the District
Court.

															JUSTICE BREYER, dissenting.

															As the majority points out, Congress has enacted a specific
statute (signed by the President) granting the plaintiffs authority
to bring this case. Ante, at 815-816, citing 2 U. S. C.

															3 The majority's reference to the absence of any similar suit in
earlier disputes between Congress and the President, see ante, at 826-828, does not strike me as particularly
relevant. First, the fact that others did not choose to bring suit
does not necessarily mean the Constitution would have precluded
them from doing so. Second, because Congress did not authorize
declaratory judgment actions until the federal Declaratory Judgment
Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 955, the fact that President Johnson did not
bring such an action in 1868 is not entirely surprising. 839 § 692(a)(1) (1994 ed., Supp. II). That statutory authorization
"eliminates any prudential standing limitations and significantly
lessens the risk of unwanted conflict with the Legislative Branch." Ante, at 820, n. 3. Congress, however, cannot grant the
federal courts more power than the Constitution itself authorizes
us to exercise. Cf. Hayburn's Case, 2 Dall. 409 (1792).
Thus, we can proceed to the merits only if the "judicial Power" of
the United States-"extend[ing] to ... Cases, in Law and Equity" and
to "Controversies"-covers the dispute before us. U. S. Const., Art.
III, §2.

															I concede that there would be no case or controversy here were
the dispute before us not truly adversary, or were it not concrete
and focused. But the interests that the parties assert are genuine
and opposing, and the parties are therefore truly adverse. Cf. Chicago & Grand Trunk R. Co. v. Wellman, 143 U. S. 339 (1892). Moreover, as JUSTICE STEVENS points out, the harm that the
plaintiffs suffer (on their view of the law) consists in part of
the systematic abandonment of laws for which a majority voted, in
part of the creation of other laws in violation of procedural
rights which (they say) the Constitution provides them, and in part
of the consequent and immediate impediment to their ability to do
the job that the Constitution requires them to do. See ante, at 835-837,838 (dissenting opinion); Complaint' 14; App. 3436,
39-40, 42-46, 54-55, 57-59, 62-64. Since federal courts might well
adjudicate cases involving comparable harms in other contexts (such
as purely private contexts), the harm at issue is sufficiently
concrete. Cf., e. g., Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S.
154, 167-174 (1997); Northeastern Fla. Chapter, Associated Gen.
Contractors of America v. Jacksonville, 508 U. S. 656 (1993). See
also ante, at 831-832 (SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment).
The harm is focused and the accompanying legal issues are both
focused and of the sort that this Court is used to deciding. See, e. g., United States v. Munoz-Flores, 495 U. S. 385 , 392-396
(1990). The plaintiffs 840 therefore do not ask the Court "to pass upon" an "abstract,
intellectual proble[m]," but to determine "a concrete, living
contest between" genuine "adversaries." Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.
S. 433 , 460 (1939) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

															Nonetheless, there remains a serious constitutional difficulty
due to the fact that this dispute about lawmaking procedures arises
between Government officials and is brought by legislators. The
critical question is whether or not this dispute, for that reason,
is so different in form from those "matters that were the
traditional concern of the courts at Westminster" that it falls
outside the scope of Article Ill's judicial power. Ibid. Justice Frankfurter explained this argument in his dissent in Coleman, saying that courts traditionally "leave intra-parliamentary controversies to parliaments and
outside the scrutiny of law courts. The procedures for voting in
legislative assemblies-who are members, how and when they should
vote, what is the requisite number of votes for different phases of
legislative activity, what votes were cast and how they were
countedsurely are matters that not merely concern political action,
but are of the very essence of political action, if 'political' has
any connotation at all. ... In no sense are they matters of
'private damage.' They pertain to legislators not as individuals
but as political representatives executing the legislative process.
To open the law courts to such controversies is to have courts sit
in judgment on the manifold disputes engendered by procedures for
voting in legislative assemblies." Id., at 469-470. Justice Frankfurter dissented because, in his view, the
"political" nature of the case, which involved legislators, placed
the dispute outside the scope of Article Ill's "case" or
"controversy" requirement. Nonetheless, the Coleman court
rejected his argument. 841 Although the majority today attempts to distinguish Coleman,
ante, at 821-826, I do not believe that Justice Frankfurter's
argument or variations on its theme can carry the day here. First,
as previously mentioned, the jurisdictional statute before us
eliminates all but constitutional considerations, and the
circumstances mentioned above remove all but the "political" or
"intragovernmental" aspect of the constitutional issue. Supra, at 838-839.

															Second, the Constitution does not draw an absolute line between
disputes involving a "personal" harm and those involving an
"official" harm." Cf. ante, at 818, 821. See ante, at
831, n. 2 (SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment). Justice Frankfurter
himself said that this Court had heard cases involving injuries
suffered by state officials in their official capacities. Coleman, supra, at 466 (citing Blodgett v. Silberman, 277
U. S. 1 (1928), and Boynton v. Hutchinson, 291 U.
S. 656, cert. dism'd on other grounds, 292 U. S. 601 (1934)). See
also, e. g., Will v. Calvert Fire Ins. Co., 437 U. S. 655 , 661 (1978)
(Federal District Judge appealing mandamus issued against him in
respect to a docketkeeping matter); Board of Ed. of Central
School Dist. No.1 v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236 , 241, n. 5
(1968) (indicating that school board has standing where members
must either violate oath or risk loss of school funds and expulsion
from office). Coleman itself involved injuries in the
plaintiff legislators' official capacity. And the majority in this
case, suggesting that legislators might have standing to complain
of rules that "denied" them "their vote ... in a discriminatory
manner," concedes at least the possibility that any constitutional
rule distinguishing "official" from "personal" injury is not
absolute. Ante, at 824, n. 7. See also ante, at
821.

															Third, Justice Frankfurter's views were dissenting views, and
the dispute before us, when compared to Coleman, presents a
much stronger claim, not a weaker claim, for constitutional
justiciability. The lawmakers in Coleman complained of a
lawmaking procedure that, at worst, improperly counted 842 Kansas as having ratified one proposed constitutional amendment,
which had been ratified by only 5 other States, and rejected by 26,
making it unlikely that it would ever become law. Coleman,
supra, at 436. The lawmakers in this case complain of a
lawmaking procedure that threatens the validity of many laws (for
example, all appropriations laws) that Congress regularly and
frequently enacts. The systematic nature of the harm immediately
affects the legislators' ability to do their jobs. The harms here
are more serious, more pervasive, and more immediate than the harm
at issue in Coleman. Cf. Valley Forge Christian
College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and
State, Inc., 454
U. S. 464 , 471 (1982), quoting Chicago & Grand
Trunk R. Co. v. Wellman, 143 U. S., at 345 (judicial
power" 'is legitimate only in the last resort, and as a necessity
in the determination of real, earnest and vital controversy'
").

															The majority finds a difference in the fact that the
validity

															of the legislators' votes was directly at issue in Coleman. "[O]ur holding in Coleman stands ... for the proposition
that legislators whose votes would have been sufficient to defeat
(or enact) a specific legislative Act have standing to sue if that
legislative action goes into effect (or does not go into effect),
on the ground that their votes have been completely nullified." Ante, at 823. But since many of the present plaintiffs will likely vote in the
majority for at least some appropriations bills that are then
subject to Presidential cancellation, I think that-on their view of
the law-their votes are threatened with nullification too. Cf. ante, at 823, n. 6, 825.

															The majority also suggests various distinctions arising out of
the fact that Coleman involved a state legislature, rather
than the federal Congress. Ante, at 824-825, n. 8. See also ante, at 832, n. 3 (SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment). But
Justice Frankfurter treated comparable arguments as irrelevant, and
the Coleman majority did not disagree. Coleman, 843 307 U. S., at 462, 465-466, and n. 6 (Frankfurter, J.,
dissenting); id., at 446. While I recognize the existence of
potential differences between state and federal legislators, I do
not believe that those differences would be determinative here,
where constitutional, not prudential, considerations are at issue,
particularly given the Constitution's somewhat comparable concerns
for state authority and the presence here of a federal statute
(signed by the President) specifically authorizing this lawsuit.
Cf. ante, at 833 (SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment). And
in light of the immediacy of the harm, I do not think that the
possibility of a later challenge by a private plaintiff, see ante, at 834-835 (SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment), could
be constitutionally determinative. Finally, I do not believe that
the majority's historical examples primarily involving the
Executive Branch and involving lawsuits that were not brought, ante, at 826-828, are legally determinative. See ante, at 838, n. 3 (STEVENS, J., dissenting).

															In sum, I do not believe that the Court can find this case
nonjusticiable without overruling Coleman. Since it does not
do so, I need not decide whether the systematic nature,
seriousness, and immediacy of the harm would make this dispute
constitutionally justiciable even in Coleman's absence.
Rather, I can and would find this case justiciable on Coleman's authority. I add that because the majority has
decided that this dispute is not now justiciable and has expressed
no view on the merits of the appeal, I shall not discuss the merits
either, but reserve them for future argument.

Summary: Only the plaintiffs who have been personally injured by an adverse action have standing to sue, and political power loss is not a judicially cognizable injury. The Supreme Court ruled that the Members of Congress who voted against the Line Item Veto Act lacked standing to sue because they did not suffer a personal injury and their votes were not nullified.