514
Scalia, J., dissenting
"clerical error" that made it uniquely insusceptible of correction by the means set forth in the statute. But there is not. Indeed, what more plausible and predictable occasion for congressional revision could there be than the demonstration of an error in the reported census count? By taking the responsibility for determining and remedying that error away from Congress, where the statute has placed it, and grasping it with its own hands, the Court commits a flagrant violation of the separation of powers.
The Court can find no excuse in our precedents for today's holding. It relies on three of our cases in which it says we "found standing in similar circumstances," ante, at 464. They are similar as day and night are similar. Two of them, Federal Election Comm'n v. Akins, 524 U. S. 11 (1998), and Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority v. Citizens for Abatement of Aircraft Noise, Inc., 501 U. S. 252 (1991), are inapposite because redress of the plaintiffs' injuries did not require action by an independent third party that was not (and could not be) brought to answer before a federal court, much less by a third party for whom (as for the President) it would be disrespectful for us to presume a course of action, and much, much less in violation of the explicit text of a statute.2 Although in the third case, Bennett v. Spear, 520 U. S. 154 (1997), we found standing to challenge the action of one agency (Fish and Wildlife Service) despite the fact that redress ultimately depended upon action by another agency (Bureau of Reclamation) not before the Court, we made it quite clear that we came to this conclusion only because in the matter at issue the one agency had the power to coerce action by the other: "[I]t does not suffice," we said, "if the injury complained of is the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court." Id., at 169
2 Moreover, in Metropolitan Washington there was no doubt that, if a court enjoined the challenged action, the injuries it allegedly caused would be redressed automatically by operation of law. See 501 U. S., at 265 (citing 49 U. S. C. App. § 2456(h)).
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