	Introduction

In disputes between Congress and the executive, questions arise about Congress's ability to turn to the federal courts to vindicate its powers and prerogatives or for declarations that the executive is in violation of the law or the Constitution. This report seeks to provide an overview of Congress's ability to participate in litigation before Article III courts. The report is limited to a discussion of Congress's participation in litigation as either a plaintiff (e.g., the party initiating the suit alleging some sort of harm or violation of law) or as a third-party intervener (e.g., a party who is seeking to join litigation already initiated by another plaintiff). The report does not address situations where Congress or individual Members appear as a defendant, or congressional participation in court cases as amicus curiae ("friend of the court"), as those situations do not raise the same legal and constitutional questions at issue when Congress or a Member is the party plaintiff. Congressional plaintiffs, whether they be individual Members, committees, houses of Congress (i.e., the House or Senate), or legislative branch entities, must demonstrate that they meet the requirements established by Article III of the Constitution in order to participate as party litigants. The failure to establish standing is fatal to the litigation and will result in its dismissal without the court addressing the merits of the presented claims. The Supreme Court's 1997 decision in Raines v. Byrd has had a chilling effect on the ability of individual Members of Congress to demonstrate Article III standing and thereby have their claims adjudicated in federal court. Courts have emphasized the distinction between suits brought by individual congressional plaintiffs asserting abstract and diffuse injuries and suits brought by organs of Congress alleging concrete institutional harms. Recent case law in this area suggests that suits brought by Congress in an institutional capacity have a greater chance of satisfying standing requirements than do cases where individual Members attempt to assert political or institutional injuries based on executive action. Despite holding that the legislators had standing, the Court affirmed the holding of the Kansas Supreme Court. With respect to the status of its pre- Raines rulings, a majority of the D.C. The case, however, presented a conflict between the Court's holding in Raines and the D.C. In Committee on Judiciary, U.S. House of Representatives v. Miers and Committee on Oversight and Government Reform v. Holder , two different judges for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia heard cases involving a House committee seeking to enforce a congressional subpoena against current or former executive branch officials through a civil suit. In 2008, the district court in Miers held that the Judiciary Committee "had been expressly authorized by the House of Representatives as an institution " to bring the suit by House resolution. The subcommittee chairmen's failure to obtain an authorizing resolution from the full House, therefore, required the dismissal of the appeal without any decision on the merits. In Miers , the District Court for the District of Columbia explicitly applied the reasoning in AT&T and concluded that the Committee plaintiff had standing to enforce a subpoena because it was authorized to sue via House resolution.
In disputes between Congress and the executive, questions arise about Congress's ability to turn to the federal courts for vindication of its powers and prerogatives, or for declarations that the executive is in violation of the law or the Constitution. This report seeks to provide an overview of Congress's ability to participate in litigation before Article III courts. The report is limited to a discussion of Congress's participation in litigation as either a plaintiff (e.g., the party initiating the suit alleging some sort of harm or violation of law) or as a third-party intervener (e.g., a party who is seeking to join litigation already initiated by another plaintiff). The report does not address situations where Congress or individual Members appear as a defendant, or congressional participation in court cases as amicus curiae ("friend of the court"), as those situations do not raise the same legal and constitutional questions as does the involvement of Congress or its Members as a party plaintiff.
Generally, to participate as party litigants, congressional plaintiffs, whether they be individual Members, committees, houses of Congress (i.e., the House or Senate), or legislative branch entities, must demonstrate that they meet the requirements of the standing doctrine, derived from Article III of the Constitution. The failure to satisfy the standing requirements is fatal to the litigation and will result in its dismissal without a decision by the court on the merits of the presented claims.
With respect to the ability of Congress and Members to demonstrate Article III standing, the Supreme Court's 1997 decision in Raines v. Byrd has had a chilling effect on the ability of individual Members of Congress to adjudicate claims before federal courts. Despite the Court's holding in Raines, in 2008 the House Judiciary Committee, acting on a resolution from the full House of Representatives, was able to convince the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that it had standing to sue the White House for its failure to make subpoenaed witnesses and documents available. In its decision, the court emphasized the distinction between suits brought by individual congressional plaintiffs asserting abstract and diffuse injuries and suits brought by organs of Congress alleging institutional harms. In 2013, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was similarly successful, with a different judge for the District Court for the District of Columbia adopting the same reasoning as the 2008 case, holding that the Committee had standing to sue to enforce a congressional subpoena, in part because the suit was authorized by the House.
Recent case law in this area suggests that suits brought by Congress in an institutional capacity have a far greater chance of being decided on their merits than do cases where individual Members attempt to assert personal or political injuries based on executive action. Through the years, Congress has had a fair amount of success bringing suits to enforce subpoenas and intervening as a third party in ongoing litigation when it is specifically authorized to seek judicial recourse. However, outside the subpoena and intervenor contexts, it remains unclear whether a house of Congress could satisfy the requirements of standing as a plaintiff in an authorized lawsuit against the executive branch. In July 2014, the House authorized the Speaker to institute a lawsuit against the executive branch regarding its implementation of the Affordable Care Act, which may lead to the development of case law in this area of congressional standing.