Cite as: 520 U. S. 43 (1997)
Syllabus
interest in defending the measure they successfully sponsored—is dubious because they are not elected state legislators, authorized by state law to represent the State's interests, see Karcher v. May, 484 U. S. 72, 82. Furthermore, this Court has never identified initiative proponents as Article-III-qualified defenders. Cf. Don't Bankrupt Washington Committee v. Continental Ill. Nat. Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago, 460 U. S. 1077. Their assertion of representational or associational standing is also problematic, absent the concrete injury that would confer standing upon AOE members in their own right, see, e. g., Food and Commercial Workers v. Brown Group, Inc., 517 U. S. 544, 551-553, and absent anything in Article XXVIII's state-court citizen-suit provision that could support standing for Arizona residents in general, or AOE in particular, to defend the Article's constitutionality in federal court. Nevertheless, this Court need not definitively resolve the standing of AOE and Park to proceed as they did, but assumes such standing arguendo in order to analyze the question of mootness occasioned by originating plaintiff Yniguez's departure from state employment. See, e. g., Burke v. Barnes, 479 U. S. 361, 363, 364, n. Pp. 64-67. (b) Because Yniguez no longer satisfies the case-or-controversy requirement, this case is moot. To qualify as a case fit for federal-court adjudication, an actual controversy must be extant at all stages of review, not merely at the time the complaint is filed. E. g., Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U. S. 395, 401. Although Yniguez had a viable claim at the outset of this litigation, her resignation from public sector employment to pursue work in the private sector, where her speech was not governed by Article XXVIII, mooted the case stated in her complaint. Cf. Boyle v. Landry, 401 U. S. 77, 78, 80-81. Contrary to the Ninth Circuit's ruling, her implied plea for nominal damages, which the Ninth Circuit approved as against the State of Arizona, could not revive the case, as § 1983 actions do not lie against a State, Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58, 71; Arizona was permitted to participate in the appeal only as an intervenor, through its Attorney General, not as a party subject to an obligation to pay damages; and the State's cooperation with Yniguez in waiving Eleventh Amendment immunity did not recreate a live case or controversy fit for federal-court adjudication, cf., e. g., United States v. Johnson, 319 U. S. 302, 304. Pp. 67-71. (c) When a civil case becomes moot pending appellate adjudication, the established practice in the federal system is to reverse or vacate the judgment below and remand with a direction to dismiss. United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36, 39. This Court is not disarmed from that course by the State Attorney General's failure to petition for certiorari. The Court has an obligation to inquire not only into its own
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