Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11, 12 (1998)

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22

FEDERAL ELECTION COMM'N v. AKINS

Opinion of the Court

counts Clause, which requires that "a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time." 418 U. S., at 167-169. The Court held that the plaintiff lacked standing because there was "no 'logical nexus' between the [plaintiff's] asserted status of taxpayer and the claimed failure of the Congress to require the Executive to supply a more detailed report of the [CIA's] expenditures." Id., at 175; see also id., at 174 (quoting Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 102 (1968), for the proposition that in "taxpayer standing" cases, there must be " 'a logical nexus between the status asserted and the claim sought to be adjudicated' ").

In this case, however, the "logical nexus" inquiry is not relevant. Here, there is no constitutional provision requiring the demonstration of the "nexus" the Court believed must be shown in Richardson and Flast. Rather, there is a statute which, as we previously pointed out, supra, at 19-20, does seek to protect individuals such as respondents from the kind of harm they say they have suffered, i. e., failing to receive particular information about campaign-related activities. Cf. Richardson, 418 U. S., at 178, n. 11.

The fact that the Court in Richardson focused upon taxpayer standing, id., at 171-178, not voter standing, places that case at still a greater distance from the case before us. We are not suggesting, as the dissent implies, post, at 32-34, that Richardson would have come out differently if only the plaintiff had asserted his standing to sue as a voter, rather than as a taxpayer. Faced with such an assertion, the Richardson Court would simply have had to consider whether "the Framers . . . ever imagined that general directives [of the Constitution] . . . would be subject to enforcement by an individual citizen." 418 U. S., at 178, n. 11 (emphasis added). But since that answer (like the answer to whether there was taxpayer standing in Richardson) would have rested in significant part upon the Court's view of the Accounts Clause, it still would not control our answer in this case. All this is

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