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Notes -
Sorry for my slowness on the court. I've gone through the first three decisions for this week, but not written them up. I just saw that there are another three, so expect more of a delay.
But yeah, this one's the most straightforward opinion of the lot, and rightly so.
Standing is the doctrine that the court can't just rule on anything, but has to be dealing with an actual legal case, where there are harms that can be remedied to the petitioners, along with a few other requirements. They have to always be acting as a court, in essence, not a "I want to change the law" machine, even if they politically are treated more as the latter.
The opinion of the court is just Kavanaugh saying, "No, this theory of standing that the petitioners try to claim to be able to make their case is dumb and wrong. No, this other theory of standing is also dumb and wrong. No, that other one is wrong too" and so forth. He's compelling; the doctors are stretching anything they can to come up with standing.
The concurrence is very Thomas. Writing lone opinions to explain what he thinks the law should be in nonmajority opinions, without regard to factors other justices consider, like whether the petitioners requested it, or stare decisis, is something he often does (see, for example, his Dobbs concurrence). I love it.
Thomas is arguing that associations shouldn't have standing on behalf of their members (he also briefly throws in at the beginning that the rarely used third party). He says that this was essentially fabricated in the mid-20th century, without really any reasoning behind it. Further, it doesn't work with ordinary principles of standing (how, exactly, do you help the people by aiding the organization), or of ordinary legal process (it allows people more than one chance with the same suit, as they are treated differently than individuals containing them.) Rather, the proper vehicle for the interests of many individuals is a class-action. I think he had a few other points.
I generally found this compelling, but am not really acquainted with law for standing, as I'm not a lawyer.
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