Suing is hard.

The framers were far more concerned with Congress or the President exceeding their powers than they were of the Supreme Court doing so. 17 In any event, the standing doctrine is a ridiculously poor device for ensuring separation of powers because it is essentially random in nature. Standing doctrine instructs federal judges not to decide a subset of cases, but that subset of cases bears no direct relationship with the very different subset of cases that could induce an unwary court to expand its powers illegitimately. In other words, the Judicial Branch already has every opportunity it could ever ask for to aggrandize power unto itself simply by deciding on the merits cases in which an actual injury exists. Carving out an unrelated subset of cases from judicial cognizance has no more effect on the overall separation of powers than if judges were to roll dice for each constitutional case and dismiss the action when snake eyes turn up. Policy arguments that standing is necessary for an adversarial process that sharpens the issues and allows for introduction of the best available evidence simply fails in light of the fact that, historically, many plaintiffs who do have traditional standing litigate the constitutionality of acts or laws for purely ideological purposes and make quite good adversaries for the government. As for the floodgates argument, the time and money involved in shepherding a case through the American legal system is enough to deter all but the most determined litigants, regardless of a standing requirement. Even for wealthy or persistent litigants, courts would retain their traditional ability to dismiss frivolous or vexatious claims. The cases that would make it through are cases in which a serious, arguable claim exists that a statute or governmental act violates the Constitution. Those are the types of cases federal courts should want to hear, as they go to one of the fundamental reasons for the courts' existence.