Steel Co.

Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 523 U.S. 83 (1998)

Scalia is so not cool with "resequencing", i.e. addressing standing before SMJ, but Stevens wants to permit it.

Scalia: "We decline to endorse such an approach because it carries the courts beyond the bounds of authorized judicial action and thus offends fundamental principles of separation of powers." 94

Again: "The statutory and (especially) constitutional elements of jurisdiction are an essential ingredient of separation of equilibration of powers, restraining the courts from acting at certain times, and even restraining them from acting permanently regarding certain subjects." 101

Finally: "For a court to pronounce upon the meaning or the constitutionality of a state or federal law when it has no jurisdiction to do so is, by very definition, for a court to act ultra vires." 101-02

Stevens relies in part on the idea of constitutional avoidance (but recall the idea that constitutional avoidance is itself constitutionally motivated, so the very act of deciding to avoid a constitutional question is an act of interpreting the constitution (right?)).

References

Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S. 678 (1946)

Mitchell v. Maurer, 293 U.S. 237 (1934)

Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, 506 U.S. 263 (1993)

The Fair v. Kohler Die & Specialty Co., 228 U.S. 22 (1913)

Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y. v. County of Oneida, 414 U.S. 661 (1974)

Romero v. International Terminal Operating Co., 358 U.S. 354 (1959)

Gwaltney of Smithfield, Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc., 484 U.S. 49 (1987)

United States v. Vanness, 85 F.3d 661 (C.A.D.C. 1996)

Northwest Airlines v. County of Kent, 510 U.S. 355 (1994)

Montana-Dakota Util. v. Northwestern Public Service, 341 U.S. 246 (1951)

Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977)

Great Southern Fire Proof Hotel v. Jones, 177 U.S. 449 (1900)