Majority Opinion (Chief Justice Earl Warren)
Frothingham v. Mellon did not recognize a constitutional barrier against federal taxpayer lawsuits. Rather, it denied standing because the petitioner did not allege "a breach by Congress of the specific constitutional limitations imposed upon an exercise of the taxing and spending power." Because the purpose of standing is to avoid burdening the court with situations in which there is no real controversy, standing is used to ensure that the parties in the suit are properly adversarial, "not whether the issue itself is justiciable."
In Flast, Warren established a "double nexus" test which a taxpayer must satisfy in order to have standing. First, he must "establish a logical link between status and the type of legislative enactment attacked." Second, "the taxpayer must show the challenged enactment is generally beyond the powers delegated to Congress by Article I, Section 8." Only when both nexuses have been satisfied may the petitioner have standing to sue.
Read more about this topic: Flast V. Cohen
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