Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 11 (1998)

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Cite as: 523 U. S. 1 (1998)

Opinion of the Court

'must affirmatively appear in the record,' " and that "it is the burden of the 'party who seeks the exercise of jurisdiction in his favor,' 'clearly to allege facts demonstrating that he is a proper party to invoke judicial resolution of the dispute.' " FW/PBS, Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U. S. 215, 231 (1990) (citations omitted). The practice of presuming collateral consequences developed during an era in which it was thought that the only function of the constitutional requirement of standing was "to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues," Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 204 (1962). Sibron appears in the same volume of the United States Reports as Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83 (1968), which said:

"The question whether a particular person is a proper party to maintain the action does not, by its own force, raise separation of powers problems related to improper judicial interference in areas committed to other branches of the Federal Government. Such problems arise, if at all, only from the substantive issues the individual seeks to have adjudicated. Thus, in terms of Article III limitations on federal court jurisdiction, the question of standing is related only to whether the dispute sought to be adjudicated will be presented in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed as capable of judicial resolution." Id., at 100-101.

See Benton v. Maryland, supra, at 790-791 ("Although this possibility [of collateral consequences] may well be a remote one, it is enough to give this case an adversary cast and make it justiciable"). That parsimonious view of the function of Article III standing has since yielded to the acknowledgment that the constitutional requirement is a "means of 'defin[ing] the role assigned to the judiciary in a tripartite allocation of power,' " Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc.,

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