DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORP. et al. v. CUNO et al.

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Syllabus
DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORP. et al. v. CUNO et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the sixth circuit
No. 04–1704. Argued March 1, 2006—Decided May 15, 2006*
The city of Toledo and State of Ohio sought to encourage DaimlerChrysler
Corp. to expand its Toledo operations by offering it local property tax
exemptions and a state franchise tax credit. A group of plaintiffs in
cluding Toledo residents who pay state and local taxes sued in state
court, alleging that the tax breaks violated the Commerce Clause. The
taxpayer plaintiffs claimed injury because the tax breaks depleted the
state and local treasuries to which they contributed. Defendants re
moved the action to District Court. Plaintiffs moved to remand to
state court because, inter alia, they doubted whether they satisfied
either the constitutional or prudential limitations on standing in federal
court. The District Court declined to remand the case, concluding that
plaintiffs had standing under the “municipal taxpayer standing” rule
articulated in Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447. On the merits,
the court found that neither tax benefit violated the Commerce Clause.
Without addressing standing, the Sixth Circuit agreed as to the munici
pal tax exemption, but held that the state franchise tax credit violated
the Commerce Clause. Defendants sought certiorari to review the in
validation of the franchise tax credit, and plaintiffs sought certiorari
to review the upholding of the property tax exemption. This Court
granted review to consider whether the franchise tax credit violates
the Commerce Clause, and directed the parties to address the issue
of standing.
Held: Plaintiffs have not established their standing to challenge the state
franchise tax credit. Because they have no standing to challenge that
credit, the lower courts erred by considering their claims on the mer
its. Pp. 340–354.
1. State taxpayers have no standing under Article III to challenge
state tax or spending decisions simply by virtue of their status as tax
payers. Pp. 340–349.
(a) Before this Court can address the merits of plaintiffs’ challenge,
it has an obligation to assure itself that the merits question is presented
in a proper Article III “case” or “controversy.” Lujan v. Defenders of
*Together with No. 04–1724, Wilkins, Tax Commissioner for State of
Ohio, et al. v. Cuno et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

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Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560. The case-or-controversy limitation is cru
cial in maintaining the “ ‘tripartite allocation of power’ ” set forth in the
Constitution. Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for
Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 474. “Article III
standing . . . enforces the . . . case-or-controversy requirement.” Elk
Grove Unified School Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U. S. 1, 11. The requisite
elements of standing are familiar: “A plaintiff must allege personal in
jury fairly traceable to the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct and
likely to be redressed by the requested relief.” Allen v. Wright, 468
U. S. 737, 751. Plaintiffs, as the parties now asserting federal jurisdic
tion, must carry the burden of establishing their standing. Pp. 340–342.
(b) Plaintiffs’ principal claim that the franchise tax credit depletes
state funds to which they contribute through their taxes, and thus
diminishes the total funds available for lawful uses and imposes dispro
portionate burdens on them, is insufficient to establish standing under
Article III. This Court has denied federal taxpayers standing under
Article III to object to a particular expenditure of federal funds simply
because they are taxpayers. See, e. g., Valley Forge Christian College,
supra, at 476–482. The animating principle behind cases such as Valley
Forge was announced in Frothingham v. Mellon, decided with Massa
chusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, in which the Court observed that a
federal taxpayer’s “interest in the moneys of the Treasury . . . is shared
with millions of others; is comparatively minute and indeterminable; and
the effect upon future taxation, of any payment out of the funds, so
remote, fluctuating and uncertain, that no basis is afforded for an appeal
to the preventive powers of a court of equity,” id., at 487. This ration
ale applies with undiminished force to state taxpayers who allege simply
that a state fiscal decision will deplete the fisc and “impose dispropor
tionate burdens on them.” See Doremus v. Board of Ed. of Hawthorne,
342 U. S. 429, 433–434. Because state budgets frequently have an array
of tax and spending provisions that may be challenged on a variety
of bases, affording state taxpayers standing to press such challenges
simply because their tax burden gives them an interest in the state
treasury would interpose the federal courts as “ ‘virtually continuing
monitors of the wisdom and soundness’ ” of state fiscal administration,
contrary to the more modest role Article III envisions for federal courts.
See Allen, supra, at 760–761. Pp. 342–346.
(c) Also rejected is plaintiffs’ argument that they have state tax
payer standing on the ground that their Commerce Clause challenge is
just like the Establishment Clause challenge this Court permitted in
Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 105–106. Flast allowed an Establishment
Clause challenge by federal taxpayers to a congressional action under
Art. I, § 8. Although Flast held out the possibility that “specific [consti

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334 DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORP. v. CUNO
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tutional] limitations” other than the Establishment Clause might sup
port federal taxpayer standing, 392 U. S., at 105, 85, only the Establish
ment Clause has been held to do so since Flast, see, e. g., Bowen v.
Kendrick, 487 U. S. 589, 618. Plaintiffs’ reliance on Flast is misguided:
Whatever rights plaintiffs have under the Commerce Clause, they are
fundamentally unlike the right not to contribute even “ ‘three pence’ ”
to support a religious establishment that was upheld in Flast, 392 U. S.,
at 103. Indeed, plaintiffs compare the two Clauses at such a high level
of generality that almost any constitutional constraint on government
power could be likened to the Establishment Clause as interpreted in
Flast. Id., at 105. And a finding that the Commerce Clause satisfies
the Flast test because it often implicates governments’ fiscal decisions
would leave no principled way of distinguishing other constitutional pro
visions that also constrain governments’ taxing and spending decisions.
See, e. g., Arkansas Writers’ Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S. 221.
Yet such a broad application of Flast’s exception to the general prohibi
tion on taxpayer standing would be at odds with Flast’s own promise
that it would not transform federal courts into forums for taxpayers’
“generalized grievances.” 392 U. S., at 106. Pp. 347–349.
2. Plaintiffs’ status as municipal taxpayers does not give them stand
ing to challenge the state franchise tax credit at issue.
This Court has noted with approval the standing of municipal taxpay
ers to enjoin the illegal use of a municipal corporation’s funds. See,
e. g., Frothingham, supra, at 486–487. But plaintiffs’ attempts to lever
age the notion of municipal taxpayer standing into standing to challenge
the state tax credit are unavailing. Pp. 349–354.
(a) Plaintiffs argue that because state law requires revenues from
the franchise tax to be distributed to local governments, the award of a
credit to DaimlerChrysler reduced such distributions and thus depleted
the funds of local governments to which plaintiffs pay taxes. But plain
tiffs’ challenge is still to the state law and state decision, not those of
plaintiffs’ municipality. Their argument thus suffers from the same de
fects that the claim of state taxpayer standing exhibits. Pp. 349–350.
(b) Also rejected is plaintiffs’ claim that their standing to challenge
the municipal property tax exemption supports jurisdiction over their
challenge to the franchise tax credit under the “supplemental jurisdic
tion” recognized in Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715. Gibbs held
that federal-question jurisdiction over a claim may authorize a federal
court to exercise jurisdiction over state-law claims that may be viewed
as part of the same case because they “derive from a common nucleus
of operative fact” as the federal claim. Id., at 725. Plaintiffs assume
that Gibbs stands for the proposition that federal jurisdiction extends
to all claims sufficiently related to a claim within Article III to be part

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of the same case, regardless of the deficiency that would keep the former
claims out of federal court if presented on their own. This Court’s gen
eral approach to the application of Gibbs has been markedly more cau
tious. See, e. g., Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc., 545
U. S. 546, 553. The Court has never applied Gibbs’ rationale to permit
a federal court to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a claim that
does not itself satisfy those elements of the Article III inquiry, such as
constitutional standing, that “serv[e] to identify those disputes which
are appropriately resolved through the judicial process.” Whitmore v.
Arkansas, 495 U. S. 149, 155. There is no reason to read Gibbs’ lan
guage as broadly as plaintiffs urge, particularly since the Court’s stand
ing cases confirm that a plaintiff must demonstrate standing for each
claim he seeks to press, see, e. g., Allen, supra, at 752. If standing were
commutative, as plaintiffs claim, the Court’s insistence that a plaintiff
must demonstrate standing separately for each form of relief sought,
see, e. g., Friends of Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services
(TOC), Inc., 528 U. S. 167, 185, would make little sense when all claims
for relief derive from a “common nucleus of operative fact,” as they
appear to have in cases like Laidlaw.
Such a reading of Gibbs would have remarkable implications. The
doctrines of mootness, ripeness, and political question all originate in
Article III’s “case” or “controversy” language, no less than standing
does. See, e. g., National Park Hospitality Assn. v. Department of In
terior, 538 U. S. 803, 808. Yet if Gibbs’ “common nucleus” formulation
announced a new definition of “case” or “controversy” for all Article III
purposes, a federal court would be free to entertain moot or unripe
claims, or claims presenting a political question, if they “derived from”
the same “operative fact[s]” as another federal claim suffering from none
of these defects. Plaintiffs’ reading of Gibbs, therefore, would amount
to a significant revision of the Court’s precedent interpreting Article
III. With federal courts thus deciding issues they would not otherwise
be authorized to decide, the “ ‘tripartite allocation of power’ ” that Arti
cle III is designed to maintain, Valley Forge, supra, at 474, would
quickly erode, and the Court’s emphasis on the standing requirement’s
role in maintaining this separation would be rendered hollow rhetoric,
see Lewis v. Casey, 518 U. S. 343, 357. Pp. 350–354.
386 F. 3d 738, vacated in part and remanded.
Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens,
Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Breyer, and Alito, JJ., joined.
Ginsburg, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the
judgment, post, p. 354.

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336 DAIMLERCHRYSLER CORP. v. CUNO
Counsel
Theodore B. Olson argued the cause for petitioners in
No. 04–1704. With him on the briefs for petitioner Daimler-
Chrysler Corporation were Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., David
Debold, Matthew D. McGill, Charles A. Rothfeld, Erika Z.
Jones, and Miriam R. Nemetz. Douglas R. Cole, State
Solicitor of Ohio, argued the cause for petitioners in
No. 04–1724. With him on the briefs were Jim Petro, Attor
ney General, Stephen P. Carney, Senior Deputy Solicitor,
Erik J. Clark, Deputy Solicitor, Sharon A. Jennings and
Robert C. Maier, Assistant Attorneys General, Samuel J.
Nugent, Adam W. Loukx, and Lisa E. Pizza.
Peter D. Enrich argued the cause for respondents in both
cases. With him on the brief were Alan Morrison and
Terry J. Lodge.†
†Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in both cases were filed for
Wayne County, Michigan, by Edward M. Thomas and Melvin Butch Hollo
well; for Elyria, Ohio, et al. by Eric H. Zagrans; for AlphaGenics, Inc.,
et al. by Frederick A. Provorny; for the Ashbrook Center for Public Af
fairs by Douglas G. Smith; for the Chamber of Commerce of the United
States of America et al. by Charles A. Trost, Michael G. Stewart, Robin
S. Conrad, and Amar D. Sarwal; for the Council on State Taxation et al.
by Douglas L. Lindholm, Stephen P. B. Kranz, William D. Peltz, Jan S.
Amundson, and Quentin Riegel; for Ford Motor Co. et al. by Jerome B.
Libin, Kent L. Jones, Kendall L. Houghton, Jeffrey A. Friedman, David
G. Leitch, and Thomas A. Gottschalk; for Nissan North America, Inc., by
H. Christopher Bartolomucci and Messrs. Trost and Stewart; and for the
Washington Legal Foundation by Daniel J. Popeo and David Price.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in No. 04–1704 were filed for the
City of New York by Michael A. Cardozo and Leonard J. Koerner; for
the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural
Implement Workers of America, et al. by Daniel W. Sherrick; for the
Pacific Legal Foundation by Anthony T. Caso; for the Right Place, Inc.,
et al. by John J. Bursch; and for the Tax Executives Institute, Inc., by Eli
J. Dicker and Gregory S. Matson.
Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal in No. 04–1724 were filed for the
State of Florida et al. by Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General of Florida,
Christopher M. Kise, Solicitor General, and Erik M. Figlio, Deputy Solici
tor General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdic

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337 Cite as: 547 U. S. 332 (2006)
Opinion of the Court
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the
Court.
Jeeps were first mass-produced in 1941 for the U. S. Army
by the Willys-Overland Motor Company in Toledo, Ohio.
Nearly 60 years later, the city of Toledo and State of Ohio
sought to encourage the current manufacturer of Jeeps—
DaimlerChrysler—to expand its Jeep operation in Toledo, by
offering local and state tax benefits for new investment.
tions as follows: Troy King of Alabama, Terry Goddard of Arizona, Mike
Beebe of Arkansas, Bill Lockyer of California, John Suthers of Colorado,
Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Thur
bert E. Baker of Georgia, Douglas B. Moylan of Guam, Mark J. Bennett
of Hawaii, Lawrence Wasden of Idaho, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Steve
Carter of Indiana, Tom Miller of Iowa, Gregory D. Stumbo of Kentucky,
Steve Rowe of Maine, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Thomas Reilly
of Massachusetts, Michael A. Cox of Michigan, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon
of Missouri, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, George J. Chanos of Nevada, Eliot
Spitzer of New York, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Pamela Brown
of the Northern Mariana Islands, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma,
Hardy Myers of Oregon, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, Roberto J.
Sanchez-Ramos of Puerto Rico, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Law
rence E. Long of South Dakota, Paul Summers of Tennessee, Greg Abbott
of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Rob
McKenna of Washington, and Peggy A. Lautenschlager of Wisconsin; and
for the National Governors Association et al. by Richard Ruda and James
I. Crowley.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance in both cases were filed for the
Fiscal Policy Institute et al. by Richard D. Pomp and Robert D. Plattner;
and for Randy Albelda et al. by Scott L. Cummings.
Henry M. Banta and Martin Lobel filed a brief for the Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities as amicus curiae urging affirmance in No. 04–1704.
Robert F. Orr and Jeanette Doran Brooks filed a brief for the North
Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law as amicus curiae urging af
firmance in No. 04–1724.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed in both cases for DIRECTV, Inc., et al.
by Betty Jo Christian, Mark F. Horning, and Lincoln L. Davies; and for
the Tax Foundation by Kyle O. Sollie and Nory Miller.
Frederick R. Damm filed a brief for the Michigan Manufacturers Associ
ation as amicus curiae in No. 04–1704.

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Opinion of the Court
Taxpayers in Toledo sued, alleging that their local and state
tax burdens were increased by the tax breaks for Daimler-
Chrysler, tax breaks that they asserted violated the Com
merce Clause. The Court of Appeals agreed that a state tax
credit offered under Ohio law violated the Commerce Clause,
and state and local officials and DaimlerChrysler sought re
view in this Court. We are obligated before reaching this
Commerce Clause question to determine whether the tax
payers who objected to the credit have standing to press
their complaint in federal court. We conclude that they do
not, and we therefore can proceed no further.
I
Ohio levies a franchise tax “upon corporations for the priv
ilege of doing business in the state, owning or using a part
or all of its capital or property in [the] state, or holding a
certificate of compliance authorizing it to do business in [the]
state.” Wesnovtek Corp. v. Wilkins, 105 Ohio St. 3d 312,
313, 2005–Ohio–1826, ¶ 2, 825 N. E. 2d 1099, 1100; see Ohio
Rev. Code Ann. § 5733.01 (Lexis 2005). A taxpayer that pur
chases “new manufacturing machinery and equipment” and
installs it at sites in the State receives a credit against the
franchise tax. See § 5733.33(B)(1) (Lexis 1999).1 Munici
palities in Ohio may also offer partial property tax waivers
to businesses that agree to invest in qualifying areas. See
§ 5709.62(C)(1)(a) (Lexis 2005). With consent from local
school districts, the partial property tax waiver can be in
creased to a complete exemption. See § 5709.62(D)(1).
In 1998, DaimlerChrysler entered into a contract with the
city of Toledo. Under the contract, DaimlerChrysler agreed
to expand its Jeep assembly plant at Stickney Avenue in
1 Ohio has begun phasing out the franchise tax and has discontinued
offering new credits against the tax like the one DaimlerChrysler re
ceived. See §§ 5733.01(G), 5733.33(B)(1) (Lexis 2005). Where relevant,
therefore, the citations in this opinion are to the statutes in effect at the
time DaimlerChrysler made its investment.

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Opinion of the Court
Toledo. In exchange, the city agreed to waive the property
tax for the plant, with the consent of the two school districts
in which the plant is located. Because DaimlerChrysler un
dertook to purchase and install “new manufacturing machin
ery and equipment,” it was also entitled to a credit against
the state franchise tax. See § 5733.33(B)(1) (Lexis 1999).
Plaintiffs filed suit against various state and local officials
and DaimlerChrysler in state court, alleging that these tax
benefits violated the Commerce Clause. Most of the plain
tiffs were residents of Toledo, who paid taxes to both the city
of Toledo and State of Ohio. They claimed that they were
injured because the tax breaks for DaimlerChrysler dimin
ished the funds available to the city and State, imposing a
“disproportionate burden” on plaintiffs. App. 18a, 23a, 28a.2
Defendants removed the action to the United States Dis
trict Court for the Northern District of Ohio. See 28
U. S. C. § 1441. Plaintiffs filed motions to remand the case
to state court. See § 1447(c). One of the grounds on which
they sought remand concerned their standing. They pro
fessed “substantial doubts about their ability to satisfy either
the constitutional or the prudential limitations on standing
in the federal court,” and urged the District Court to avoid
the issue entirely by remanding. Plaintiffs’ Supplemental
Motion for Remand to State Court in No. 3:00cv7247, p. 13,
Record, Doc. 17 (footnote omitted).
The District Court declined to remand the case, concluding
that, “[a]t the bare minimum, the Plaintiffs who are taxpay
ers have standing to object to the property tax exemption
2 Other plaintiffs were residents of Toledo who claimed they were in
jured because they were displaced by the DaimlerChrysler expansion and
Michigan residents who claimed injury because DaimlerChrysler would
have expanded its operations in Michigan but for the Ohio investment tax
credit. Plaintiffs neither identified these allegations as a basis for stand
ing in their merits brief before this Court nor referred to them at oral
argument. Any argument based on these allegations is therefore aban
doned. See, e. g., United States v. International Business Machines
Corp., 517 U. S. 843, 855, and n. 3 (1996).

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Opinion of the Court
and franchise tax credit statutes under the ‘municipal tax
payer standing’ rule articulated in Massachusetts v. Mellon,
262 U. S. 447 (1923).” App. 78a (citations omitted). On the
merits, the District Court found that neither tax benefit vio
lated the Commerce Clause. See 154 F. Supp. 2d 1196
(2001). The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit agreed
with the District Court as to the municipal property tax ex
emption, but held that the state franchise tax credit violated
the Commerce Clause. See 386 F. 3d 738 (2004). The
Court of Appeals did not address the issue of standing.
Defendants sought certiorari to review the Sixth Circuit’s
invalidation of the franchise tax credit and plaintiffs sought
certiorari to review the upholding of the property tax ex
emption. We granted certiorari to consider whether the
franchise tax credit violates the Commerce Clause, 545 U. S.
1165 (2005); the Michigan Supreme Court had decided a simi
lar question contrary to the Sixth Circuit’s analysis here.
See Caterpillar, Inc. v. Department of Treasury, 440 Mich.
400, 488 N. W. 2d 182 (1992). We also asked the parties to
address whether plaintiffs have standing to challenge the
franchise tax credit in this litigation.
II
We have “an obligation to assure ourselves” of litigants’
standing under Article III. Friends of Earth, Inc. v. Laid
law Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U. S. 167, 180
(2000). We therefore begin by addressing plaintiffs’ claims
that they have standing as taxpayers to challenge the fran
chise tax credit.
A
Chief Justice Marshall, in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch
137 (1803), grounded the Federal Judiciary’s authority to ex
ercise judicial review and interpret the Constitution on the
necessity to do so in the course of carrying out the judicial
function of deciding cases. As Marshall explained, “[t]hose
who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity ex

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Opinion of the Court
pound and interpret that rule.” Id., at 177. Determining
that a matter before the federal courts is a proper case or
controversy under Article III therefore assumes particular
importance in ensuring that the Federal Judiciary respects
“ ‘the proper—and properly limited—role of the courts in a
democratic society,’ ” Allen v. Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 750
(1984) (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490, 498 (1975)).
If a dispute is not a proper case or controversy, the courts
have no business deciding it, or expounding the law in the
course of doing so.
This Court has recognized that the case-or-controversy
limitation is crucial in maintaining the “ ‘tripartite alloca
tion of power’ ” set forth in the Constitution. Valley Forge
Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of
Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 474 (1982) (quoting
Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83, 95 (1968)). Marshall again
made the point early on, this time in a speech in the House
of Representatives. “A case in law or equity,” Marshall
remarked,
“was a term . . . of limited signification. It was a con
troversy between parties which had taken a shape for
judicial decision. If the judicial power extended to
every question under the constitution it would involve
almost every subject proper for legislative discussion
and decision; if to every question under the laws and
treaties of the United States it would involve almost
every subject on which the executive could act. The
division of power [among the branches of government]
could exist no longer, and the other departments would
be swallowed up by the judiciary.” 4 Papers of John
Marshall 95 (C. Cullen ed. 1984).
As this Court has explained, “ ‘[n]o principle is more funda
mental to the judiciary’s proper role in our system of govern
ment than the constitutional limitation of federal-court juris
diction to actual cases or controversies.’ ” Raines v. Byrd,

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Opinion of the Court
521 U. S. 811, 818 (1997) (quoting Simon v. Eastern Ky.
Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26, 37 (1976)).
The case-or-controversy requirement thus plays a critical
role, and “Article III standing . . . enforces the Constitution’s
case-or-controversy requirement. ” Elk Grove Uni fied
School Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U. S. 1, 11 (2004). The “core
component” of the requirement that a litigant have standing
to invoke the authority of a federal court “is an essential
and unchanging part of the case-or-controversy requirement
of Article III.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S.
555, 560 (1992). The requisite elements of this “core compo
nent derived directly from the Constitution” are familiar:
“A plaintiff must allege personal injury fairly traceable to
the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct and likely to be
redressed by the requested relief.” Allen, supra, at 751.
We have been asked to decide an important question of con
stitutional law concerning the Commerce Clause. But be
fore we do so, we must find that the question is presented in
a “case” or “controversy” that is, in James Madison’s words,
“of a Judiciary Nature.” 2 Records of the Federal Conven
tion of 1787, p. 430 (M. Farrand ed. 1966). That requires
plaintiffs, as the parties now asserting federal jurisdiction,
to carry the burden of establishing their standing under Ar
ticle III.3
B
Plaintiffs principally claim standing by virtue of their sta
tus as Ohio taxpayers, alleging that the franchise tax credit
3 Because defendants removed the case from state court to District
Court, plaintiffs were not initially the parties that invoked federal jurisdic
tion. Indeed, plaintiffs initially expressed doubts as to their standing.
Nonetheless, because “[w]e presume that federal courts lack jurisdiction
unless the contrary appears affirmatively from the record,” Renne v.
Geary, 501 U. S. 312, 316 (1991) (internal quotation marks omitted), the
party asserting federal jurisdiction when it is challenged has the burden
of establishing it. Whatever the parties’ previous positions on the propri
ety of a federal forum, plaintiffs, as the parties seeking to establish federal
jurisdiction, must make the showings required for standing.

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“depletes the funds of the State of Ohio to which the Plain
tiffs contribute through their tax payments” and thus
“diminish[es] the total funds available for lawful uses and
impos[es] disproportionate burdens on” them. App. 28a; see
also Brief for Respondents 24. On several occasions, this
Court has denied federal taxpayers standing under Article
III to object to a particular expenditure of federal funds sim
ply because they are taxpayers. Thus the alleged “depriva
tion of the fair and constitutional use of [a federal taxpayer’s]
tax dollar” cannot support a challenge to the conveyance of
Government land to a private religious college, Valley Forge,
supra, at 476, 482 (internal quotation marks and some brack
ets omitted), and “the interest of a taxpayer in the moneys
of the federal treasury furnishes no basis” to argue that a
federal agency’s loan practices are unconstitutional, Ala
bama Power Co. v. Ickes, 302 U. S. 464, 478 (1938); see also
Schlesinger v. Reservists Comm. to Stop the War, 418 U. S.
208 (1974); United States v. Richardson, 418 U. S. 166 (1974).
The animating principle behind these cases was announced
in their progenitor, Frothingham v. Mellon, decided with
Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447 (1923). In rejecting
a claim that improper federal appropriations would “increase
the burden of future taxation and thereby take [the plain
tiff ’s] property without due process of law,” the Court ob
served that a federal taxpayer’s
“interest in the moneys of the Treasury . . . is shared
with millions of others; is comparatively minute and in
determinable; and the effect upon future taxation, of any
payment out of the funds, so remote, fluctuating and un
certain, that no basis is afforded for an appeal to the
preventive powers of a court of equity.” Id., at 486, 487.
This logic is equally applicable to taxpayer challenges to
expenditures that deplete the treasury, and to taxpayer
challenges to so-called “tax expenditures,” which reduce
amounts available to the treasury by granting tax credits or

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exemptions. In either case, the alleged injury is based on
the asserted effect of the allegedly illegal activity on public
revenues, to which the taxpayer contributes.
Standing has been rejected in such cases because the al
leged injury is not “concrete and particularized,” Defenders
of Wildlife, supra, at 560, but instead a grievance the tax
payer “suffers in some indefinite way in common with people
generally,” Frothingham, supra, at 488. In addition, the in
jury is not “actual or imminent,” but instead “conjectural
or hypothetical.” Defenders of Wildlife, supra, at 560 (in
ternal quotation marks omitted). As an initial matter, it is
unclear that tax breaks of the sort at issue here do in fact
deplete the treasury: The very point of the tax benefits
is to spur economic activity, which in turn increases govern
ment revenues. In this very action, the Michigan plaintiffs
claimed that they were injured because they lost out on the
added revenues that would have accompanied Daimler-
Chrysler’s decision to expand facilities in Michigan. See
n. 2, supra.
Plaintiffs’ alleged injury is also “conjectural or hypothet
ical” in that it depends on how legislators respond to a re
duction in revenue, if that is the consequence of the credit.
Establishing injury requires speculating that elected officials
will increase a taxpayer-plaintiff ’s tax bill to make up a def
icit; establishing redressability requires speculating that
abolishing the challenged credit will redound to the benefit of
the taxpayer because legislators will pass along the supposed
increased revenue in the form of tax reductions. Neither
sort of speculation suffices to support standing. See
ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U. S. 605, 614 (1989) (opinion of
Kennedy, J.) (“[I]t is pure speculation whether the lawsuit
would result in any actual tax relief for respondents”);
Warth, 422 U. S., at 509 (criticizing a taxpayer standing claim
for the “conjectural nature of the asserted injury”).
A taxpayer plaintiff has no right to insist that the govern
ment dispose of any increased revenue it might experience

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as a result of his suit by decreasing his tax liability or bol
stering programs that benefit him. To the contrary, the de
cision of how to allocate any such savings is the very epitome
of a policy judgment committed to the “broad and legitimate
discretion” of lawmakers, which “the courts cannot presume
either to control or to predict.” ASARCO, supra, at 615
(opinion of Kennedy, J.). Under such circumstances, we
have no assurance that the asserted injury is “imminent”—
that it is “certainly impending.” Whitmore v. Arkansas,
495 U. S. 149, 158 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted);
see Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S., at 564–565, n. 2.
The foregoing rationale for rejecting federal taxpayer
standing applies with undiminished force to state taxpayers.
We indicated as much in Doremus v. Board of Ed. of Haw
thorne, 342 U. S. 429 (1952). In that case, we noted our ear
lier holdings that “the interests of a taxpayer in the moneys
of the federal treasury are too indeterminable, remote, un
certain and indirect” to support standing to challenge “their
manner of expenditure.” Id., at 433. We then “reiter
ate[d]” what we had said in rejecting a federal taxpayer chal
lenge to a federal statute “as equally true when a state Act
is assailed: ‘The [taxpayer] must be able to show . . . that he
has sustained . . . some direct injury . . . and not merely
that he suffers in some indefinite way in common with people
generally.’ ” Id., at 433–434 (quoting Frothingham, supra,
at 488); see ASARCO, supra, at 613–614 (opinion of Ken
nedy, J.) (“[W]e have likened state taxpayers to federal tax
payers” for purposes of taxpayer standing (citing Doremus,
supra, at 434)).
The allegations of injury that plaintiffs make in their com
plaint furnish no better basis for finding standing than those
made in the cases where federal taxpayer standing was de
nied. Plaintiffs claim that DaimlerChrysler’s tax credit de
pletes the Ohio fisc and “impos[es] disproportionate burdens
on [them].” App. 28a. This is no different from similar
claims by federal taxpayers we have already rejected under

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Article III as insufficient to establish standing. See, e. g.,
Frothingham, 262 U. S., at 486 (allegation of injury that the
effect of government spending “will be to increase the bur
den of future taxation and thereby take [plaintiff ’s] property
without due process of law”).
State policymakers, no less than their federal counter
parts, retain broad discretion to make “policy decisions” con
cerning state spending “in different ways . . . depending on
their perceptions of wise state fiscal policy and myriad other
circumstances.” ASARCO, supra, at 615 (opinion of Ken
nedy, J.). Federal courts may not assume a particular exer
cise of this state fiscal discretion in establishing standing;
a party seeking federal jurisdiction cannot rely on such
“[s]peculative inferences . . . to connect [his] injury to the
challenged actions of [the defendant],” Simon, 426 U. S., at
45; see also Allen, 468 U. S., at 759. Indeed, because state
budgets frequently contain an array of tax and spending pro
visions, any number of which may be challenged on a variety
of bases, affording state taxpayers standing to press such
challenges simply because their tax burden gives them an
interest in the state treasury would interpose the federal
courts as “ ‘virtually continuing monitors of the wisdom and
soundness’ ” of state fiscal administration, contrary to the
more modest role Article III envisions for federal courts.
See id., at 760–761 (quoting Laird v. Tatum, 408 U. S. 1, 15
(1972)).
For the foregoing reasons, we hold that state taxpayers
have no standing under Article III to challenge state tax
or spending decisions simply by virtue of their status as
taxpayers.4
4 The majority of the Courts of Appeals to have considered the issue
have reached a similar conclusion. See, e. g., Booth v. Hvass, 302 F. 3d
849 (CA8 2002); Board of Ed. of Mt. Sinai Union Free School Dist. v. New
York State Teachers Retirement System, 60 F. 3d 106 (CA2 1995); Colo
rado Taxpayers Union, Inc. v. Romer, 963 F. 2d 1394 (CA10 1992); Taub
v. Kentucky, 842 F. 2d 912 (CA6 1988); Korioth v. Briscoe, 523 F. 2d 1271

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C
Plaintiffs argue that an exception to the general prohibi
tion on taxpayer standing should exist for Commerce Clause
challenges to state tax or spending decisions, analogizing
their Commerce Clause claim to the Establishment Clause
challenge we permitted in Flast v. Cohen, 392 U. S. 83.
Flast held that because “the Establishment Clause . . . spe
cifically limit[s] the taxing and spending power conferred by
Art. I, § 8,” “a taxpayer will have standing consistent with
Article III to invoke federal judicial power when he alleges
that congressional action under the taxing and spending
clause is in derogation of ” the Establishment Clause. Id., at
105–106. Flast held out the possibility that “other specific
[constitutional] limitations” on Article I, § 8, might surmount
the “barrier to suits against Acts of Congress brought by
individuals who can assert only the interest of federal tax
payers.” 392 U. S., at 105, 85. But as plaintiffs candidly
concede, “only the Establishment Clause” has supported fed
eral taxpayer suits since Flast. Brief for Respondents 12;
see Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U. S. 589, 618 (1988) (“Although
we have considered the problem of standing and Article III
limitations on federal jurisdiction many times since [Flast],
we have consistently adhered to Flast and the narrow
exception it created to the general rule against taxpayer
standing”).
Quite apart from whether the franchise tax credit is analo
gous to an exercise of congressional power under Article I, § 8,
plaintiffs’ reliance on Flast is misguided: Whatever rights
plaintiffs have under the Commerce Clause, they are funda
mentally unlike the right not to “ ‘contribute three pence . . .
for the support of any one [religious] establishment.’ ” 392
(CA5 1975); but cf. Arakaki v. Lingle, 423 F. 3d 954, 967–969 (CA9 2005)
(finding state taxpayer standing in light of Hoohuli v. Ariyoshi, 741 F. 2d
1169 (CA9 1984), but noting that Justice Kennedy’s opinion in ASARCO
Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U. S. 605 (1989), would “carry persuasive value” ab
sent Hoohuli).

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U. S., at 103 (quoting 2 Writings of James Madison 186 (G.
Hunt ed. 1901)). Indeed, plaintiffs compare the Establish
ment Clause to the Commerce Clause at such a high level of
generality that almost any constitutional constraint on gov
ernment power would “specifically limit” a State’s taxing and
spending power for Flast purposes. 392 U. S., at 105; see
Brief for Respondents 14 (“In each case, the harm to be
avoided by [the two Clauses] is the loss of governmental neu
trality”). And even if the two Clauses are similar in that
they often implicate governments’ fiscal decisions, see id., at
13–14, a finding that the Commerce Clause satisfies the Flast
test would leave no principled way of distinguishing those
other constitutional provisions that we have recognized con
strain governments’ taxing and spending decisions, see, e. g.,
Arkansas Writers’ Project, Inc. v. Ragland, 481 U. S. 221
(1987) (invalidating state sales tax under the Free Press
Clause). Yet such a broad application of Flast’s exception
to the general prohibition on taxpayer standing would be
quite at odds with its narrow application in our precedent
and Flast’s own promise that it would not transform federal
courts into forums for taxpayers’ “generalized grievances.”
392 U. S., at 106.
Flast is consistent with the principle, underlying the Arti
cle III prohibition on taxpayer suits, that a litigant may not
assume a particular disposition of government funds in es
tablishing standing. The Flast Court discerned in the his
tory of the Establishment Clause “the specific evils feared
by [its drafters] that the taxing and spending power would
be used to favor one religion over another or to support reli
gion in general.” Id., at 103. The Court therefore under
stood the “injury” alleged in Establishment Clause chal
lenges to federal spending to be the very “extract[ion] and
spen[ding]” of “tax money” in aid of religion alleged by a
plaintiff. Id., at 106. And an injunction against the spend
ing would of course redress that injury, regardless of
whether lawmakers would dispose of the savings in a way

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that would benefit the taxpayer-plaintiffs personally. See
Valley Forge, 454 U. S., at 514 (Stevens, J., dissenting)
(“[T]he plaintiffs’ invocation of the Establishment Clause
was of decisive importance in resolving the standing issue
in [Flast]”).
Plaintiffs thus do not have state taxpayer standing on the
ground that their Commerce Clause challenge is just like the
Establishment Clause challenge in Flast.
III
Plaintiffs also claim that their status as municipal taxpay
ers gives them standing to challenge the state franchise tax
credit at issue here. The Frothingham Court noted with
approval the standing of municipal residents to enjoin the
“illegal use of the moneys of a municipal corporation,” rely
ing on “the peculiar relation of the corporate taxpayer to the
corporation” to distinguish such a case from the general bar
on taxpayer suits. 262 U. S., at 486, 487; see ASARCO, 490
U. S., at 613–614 (opinion of Kennedy, J.) (reiterating dis
tinction). Plaintiffs here challenged the municipal property
tax exemption as municipal taxpayers. That challenge was
rejected by the Court of Appeals on the merits, and no issue
regarding plaintiffs’ standing to bring it has been raised. In
plaintiffs’ challenge to the state franchise tax credit, how
ever, they identify no municipal action contributing to any
claimed injury. Instead, they try to leverage the notion of
municipal taxpayer standing beyond challenges to municipal
action, in two ways.
A
First, plaintiffs claim that because state law requires reve
nues from the franchise tax to be distributed to local govern
ments, Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 5733.12 (Lexis 2005), the
award of a credit to DaimlerChrysler reduced such distribu
tions and thus depleted the funds of “local governments to
which Respondents pay taxes.” Brief for Respondents 16.
But plaintiffs’ challenge is still to the state law and state

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decision, not those of their municipality. We have already
explained why a state taxpayer lacks standing to challenge
a state fiscal decision on the grounds that it might affect his
tax liability. All plaintiffs have done in recasting their
claims as ones brought by municipal taxpayers whose munic
ipalities receive funding from the State—the level of which
might be affected by the same state fiscal decision—is intro
duce yet another level of conjecture to their already hypo
thetical claim of injury.
And in fact events have highlighted the peril of assuming
that any revenue increase resulting from a taxpayer suit will
be put to a particular use. Ohio’s General Assembly sus
pended the statutory budget mechanism that distributes
franchise tax revenues to local governments in 2001 and
again in its subsequent biennial budgets. See Amended
Substitute H. B. 94, 124th General Assembly § 140 (2001),
available at http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/BillText124/
124_HB_94_ENR.pdf (all Internet materials as visited
May 12, 2006, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file);
Amended Substitute H. B. 95, 125th General Assembly
§ 139 (2003), available at http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/
BillText125/125_HB_95_EN2_N.pdf; Amended Substitute
H. B. 66, 126th General Assembly § 557.12 (2005), available
at http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/BillText126/126_HB_
66_EN2d.pdf. Any effect that enjoining DaimlerChrysler’s
credit will have on municipal funds, therefore, will not result
from automatic operation of a statutory formula, but from a
hypothesis that the state government will choose to direct
the supposed revenue from the restored franchise tax to mu
nicipalities. This is precisely the sort of conjecture we may
not entertain in assessing standing. See ASARCO, supra,
at 614 (opinion of Kennedy, J.).
B
The second way plaintiffs seek to leverage their standing
to challenge the municipal property tax exemption into a

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challenge to the franchise tax credit is by relying on Mine
Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U. S. 715 (1966). According to plain
tiffs, the “supplemental jurisdiction” recognized in that case
supports jurisdiction over all their claims, once the District
Court determined they had standing to challenge the prop
erty tax exemption. Brief for Respondents 17–18.
Gibbs held that federal-question jurisdiction over a claim
may authorize a federal court to exercise jurisdiction over
state-law claims that may be viewed as part of the same case
because they “derive from a common nucleus of operative
fact” as the federal claim. 383 U. S., at 725. Plaintiffs as
sume that Gibbs stands for the proposition that federal juris
diction extends to all claims sufficiently related to a claim
within Article III to be part of the same case, regardless of
the nature of the deficiency that would keep the former
claims out of federal court if presented on their own.
Our general approach to the application of Gibbs, however,
has been markedly more cautious. For example, as a matter
of statutory construction of the pertinent jurisdictional pro
visions, we refused to extend Gibbs to allow claims to be
asserted against nondiverse parties when jurisdiction was
based on diversity, see Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v.
Kroger, 437 U. S. 365 (1978), and we refused to extend Gibbs
to authorize supplemental jurisdiction over claims that do
not satisfy statutory amount-in-controversy requirements,
see Finley v. United States, 490 U. S. 545 (1989). As the
Court explained just last Term, “[w]e have not . . . applied
Gibbs’ expansive interpretive approach to other aspects
of the jurisdictional statutes.” Exxon Mobil Corp. v.
Allapattah Services, Inc., 545 U. S. 546, 553 (2005) (applying
28 U. S. C. § 1367, enacted in 1990, to allow a federal court in
a diversity action to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over
additional diverse plaintiffs whose claims failed to meet the
amount-in-controversy threshold).
What we have never done is apply the rationale of Gibbs
to permit a federal court to exercise supplemental jurisdic

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tion over a claim that does not itself satisfy those elements
of the Article III inquiry, such as constitutional standing,
that “serv[e] to identify those disputes which are appropri
ately resolved through the judicial process.” Whitmore, 495
U. S., at 155. We see no reason to read the language of
Gibbs so broadly, particularly since our standing cases con
firm that a plaintiff must demonstrate standing for each
claim he seeks to press. See Allen, 468 U. S., at 752 (“[T]he
standing inquiry requires careful judicial examination of a
complaint’s allegations to ascertain whether the particular
plaintiff is entitled to an adjudication of the particular
claims asserted” (emphasis added)). We have insisted, for
instance, that “a plaintiff must demonstrate standing sepa
rately for each form of relief sought.” Laidlaw, 528 U. S.,
at 185; see Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95, 109 (1983).
But if standing were commutative, as plaintiffs claim, this
insistence would make little sense when all claims for relief
derive from a “common nucleus of operative fact,” as they
certainly appear to have in both Laidlaw, supra, at 175–179,
and Lyons, supra, at 97–98.
Plaintiffs’ reading of Gibbs to allow standing as to one
claim to suffice for all claims arising from the same “nucleus
of operative fact” would have remarkable implications. The
doctrines of mootness, ripeness, and political question all
originate in Article III’s “case” or “controversy” language,
no less than standing does. See, e. g., National Park Hospi
tality Assn. v. Department of Interior, 538 U. S. 803, 808
(2003) (ripeness); Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona,
520 U. S. 43, 67 (1997) (mootness); Reservists Comm. to Stop
the War, 418 U. S., at 215 (political question). Yet if Gibbs’
“common nucleus” formulation announced a new definition of
“case” or “controversy” for all Article III purposes, a federal
court would be free to entertain moot or unripe claims, or
claims presenting a political question, if they “derived from”
the same “operative fact[s]” as another federal claim suffer

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ing from none of these defects. Plaintiffs’ reading of Gibbs,
therefore, would amount to a significant revision of our prec
edent interpreting Article III. With federal courts thus de
ciding issues they would not otherwise be authorized to de
cide, the “ ‘tripartite allocation of power’ ” that Article III is
designed to maintain, Valley Forge, 454 U. S., at 474, would
quickly erode; our emphasis on the standing requirement’s
role in maintaining this separation would be rendered hollow
rhetoric. As we have explained, “[t]he actual-injury re
quirement would hardly serve the purpose . . . of preventing
courts from undertaking tasks assigned to the political
branches[,] if once a plaintiff demonstrated harm from one
particular inadequacy in government administration, the
court were authorized to remedy all inadequacies in that ad
ministration.” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U. S. 343, 357 (1996).
Lewis emphasized that “[t]he remedy must of course be
limited to the inadequacy that produced the injury in fact
that the plaintiff has established.” Ibid. Plaintiffs’ theory
of ancillary standing would contravene this principle. Plain
tiffs failed to establish Article III injury with respect to
their state taxes, and even if they did do so with respect to
their municipal taxes, that injury does not entitle them to
seek a remedy as to the state taxes. As the Court summed
up the point in Lewis, “standing is not dispensed in gross.”
Id., at 358, n. 6.5
5 In defending the contrary position, plaintiffs rely on three cases from
the Courts of Appeals. But two of those cases hold only that, once a
litigant has standing to request invalidation of a particular agency action,
it may do so by identifying all grounds on which the agency may have
“ ‘failed to comply with its statutory mandate.’ ” Sierra Club v. Adams,
578 F. 2d 389, 392 (CADC 1978) (quoting Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U. S.
727, 737 (1972)); see also Iowa Independent Bankers v. Board of Gover
nors of Fed. Reserve, 511 F. 2d 1288, 1293–1294 (CADC 1975). They do
not establish that the litigant can, by virtue of his standing to challenge
one government action, challenge other governmental actions that did not
injure him. In the third case, the Court of Appeals relied substantially

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* * *
All the theories plaintiffs have offered to support their
standing to challenge the franchise tax credit are unavailing.
Because plaintiffs have no standing to challenge that credit,
the lower courts erred by considering their claims against it
on the merits. The judgment of the Sixth Circuit is there
fore vacated in part, and the cases are remanded for dis
missal of plaintiffs’ challenge to the franchise tax credit.
It is so ordered.
Justice Ginsburg, concurring in part and concurring in
the judgment.
Today’s decision, the Court rightly points out, is solidly
grounded in longstanding precedent, Frothingham v. Mel
lon, decided with Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447
(1923), and Doremus v. Board of Ed. of Hawthorne, 342 U. S.
429 (1952), decisions that antedate current jurisprudence
on standing to sue. See ante, at 343, 345. Frothingham
held nonjusticiable a federal taxpayer’s suit challenging a
federal-spending program. See 262 U. S., at 487 (describing
taxpayer’s interest as “minute and indeterminable”). Dor
emus applied Frothingham’s reasoning to a state taxpay
er’s suit. 342 U. S., at 434. These decisions exclude from
federal-court cognizance claims, not delineated by Congress,
presenting generalized grievances. An exception to Froth
ingham’s rule, recognized post-Doremus in Flast v. Cohen,
392 U. S. 83 (1968), covers certain alleged violations of the
Establishment Clause. The Flast exception has not been
extended to other areas. See Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U. S.
on the fact that “all courts possess an inherent power to prevent unprofes
sional conduct by those attorneys who are practicing before them” in
allowing the Government to contest the division of a damages award it
was ordered to pay between a plaintiff and his attorney. Jackson v.
United States, 881 F. 2d 707, 710, 711 (CA9 1989). That situation is rather
far afield from the question before us.

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589, 618 (1988); cf. Enrich, Saving the States from Them
selves: Commerce Clause Constraints on State Tax Incen
tives for Business, 110 Harv. L. Rev. 377, 417–418 (1996).
One can accept, as I do, the nonjusticiability of
Frothingham-type federal and state taxpayer suits in fed
eral court without endorsing as well the limitations on stand
ing later declared in Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights
Organization, 426 U. S. 26 (1976) (EKWRO); Valley Forge
Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of
Church and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464 (1982); Allen v. Wright,
468 U. S. 737 (1984); and Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504
U. S. 555 (1992). See EKWRO, 426 U. S., at 54–66 (Brennan,
J., concurring in judgment); Valley Forge, 454 U. S., at 513–
515 (Stevens, J., dissenting); Allen, 468 U. S., at 783–795
(same), and the overturned Court of Appeals opinion, Wright
v. Regan, 656 F. 2d 820, 828–832 (CADC 1981) (Ginsburg, J.);
Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S., at 582–585 (Stevens, J.,
concurring in judgment); Sunstein, What’s Standing after
Lujan? Of Citizen Suits, “Injuries,” and Article III, 91 Mich.
L. Rev. 163, 203–205, 228–229 (1992) (contrasting Lujan,
Allen, and EKWRO with Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke,
438 U. S. 265 (1978)); Fletcher, The Structure of Standing, 98
Yale L. J. 221, 267–270 (1988) (commenting on Flast and Val
ley Forge). Noting this large reservation, I concur in the
judgment, and in the balance of the Court’s opinion.