I can say with very little doubt that if we were to abandon the requirement of standing in this country, the balance of power among the three branches of our government would tilt significantly toward the judicial, because literally any person could invoke the power of the courts to stop the efforts and activities of the other branches. This is to say nothing of the overwhelming effect removing the standing requirement would have on the sheer number of cases the courts would have to hear.

...

Standing is derived from the doctrine of separation of powers, and "case or controversy" clause of Article III of the Constitution, which were indeed creations of the Founders. There are many constitutional features that were not specifically and expressly mentioned by the Founders, which nevertheless arise from the bolder outlines of the doctrines of limited government, separation of powers, and so on.

Sorry, I didn't notice your previous post until you flagged it with the later one.

I suppose what I was saying earlier was that the concept of standing derives from common law. Neither Article III nor the rest of the Constitution mentions the word, and a brief perusal of FindLaw seems to suggest that most of the development of the concept of standing as applied to federal and constitutional issues was done long after the Founders. Obviously such law is grounded in their work, but that's really not the same as them inventing it. Of course, that's all just a quibble, and in any case, I'm obviously no expert.

The bigger question was whether removing standing would put too much power in the hands of the judiciary. Again, as I understand it, the European method is that, for constitutional (or similar) issues, there are special mechanisms whereby complaints may be brought to the court without standing. The reason for these mechanisms is precisely because the effects of federal (or the equivalent) law may be diffuse, long-delayed, difficult to measure, or secretive. Essentially, it just consists of a relaxation of the standing requirements for certain classes of important issues. (I don't know how the courts avoid being overwhelmed with cases, but I can think of plenty of gatekeeping solutions, and in any case, empirically speaking, European countries with this system somehow manage to do just fine.) As for the balance of power, you're right, European countries do have more scope for the parliament overruling the judiciary, which does balance out the judiciary's greater scope to rule.

For the US, I'd just be in favor of explicitly weakened requirements for standing for federal and constitutional issues. Indeed, the requirements were much weaker as recently as the 50s, as I understand it. But mainly, I think quite a bit could be changed in the realm of standing without either a) jamming the bureaucracy with cases, or b) handing too much power to judiciary. (I remember a professor once inveighing against the idea of "Balance of power" between the branches, because it implied even the slightest change would totally unbalance things, whereas actually, the "balance" has shifted back and forth quite a bit over the centuries.) In any case, European countries seem to be able to maintain a weaker standing requirement without crushing their bureaucracies, handing overwhelming power to the judiciary, or requiring the parliament to be constantly overruling the judiciary. Having studied a number of nations whose legal systems were built out of the pieces of older, quite disparate legal systems, it seems to me that there's plenty of scope to throw out the baby without the bath-water.

Whatever his importance in the larger scheme of things, he does seem to be willing to engage in arguments with others, and who knows, he may actually come around on a few things and start using his bully-pulpit to convince others. So please keep at it, I say. It seems much more rewarding that arguing with Michelle Malkin or the like, anyway.*

As for "serious," though, I know that Atrios, at least, has been hammering away at that term for weeks if not months now, so there are other high-profile lefty blogs that Klein may have been visiting besides yours, though obviously the coincidence of timing is striking. In any case, it's a minor detail; making him realize what's at stake in such an apparently minor piece of terminology, though, I think is quite valuable.

(*The interesting thing about attacking the right-wing idiots, which is done here with some regularity, is that you are still, really, arguing more with the Klein's of the world. Malkin will never change her mind, and the left already knows she's horrible, so the only substantial effect of pointing out the idiocies of the right will be in the minds of MSM centrists like Klein. Obviously there may be follow-on effects, if the MSM centrists change their tunes and thus their reporting and thus the minds of millions of others, but the main effect of the arguments made here seems to be aimed at the MSM centrists themselves. I suppose there may also be centrist readers who are directly affected too, but I wonder really how many there are here; I'd bet most of "us" are pretty well convinced already.)