Standing?

In La Union del Pueblo Entero v. Abbott, the Fifth Circuit examined organizational standing as to three sets of claims about Texas Senate Bill 1’s voter-assistance rules.

1. No plaintiff organization had standing to challenge the statute’s new disclosure requirements for ballot-assistors. Fears that volunteers might be prosecuted for filling out the form incorrectly were “speculative” and “depend on a ‘highly attenuated chain of possibilities.’” Because there was no credible threat of enforcement, the court said the alleged chill on recruitment, the reallocation of staff time, and the need to educate volunteers were all self-inflicted setbacks that “do not suffice to establish injury in fact.”
2. The same held true for a challenge to the revised oath assistors must swear. The organizations argued the additional “penalty of perjury” language scared off helpers. The court was unpersuaded, emphasizing that the oath merely clarified duties that were already on the books and repeating that “[p]laintiffs ‘cannot manufacture standing merely by inflicting harm on themselves based on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly impending.’”
3. The court found osome rganizational standing for SB 1’s two compensation bans. One provision criminalizes paying—or being paid—for helping a voter complete a mail ballot. Another criminalizes compensated “vote harvesting” in the presence of a ballot. Two groups showed that their staff are routinely paid to provide exactly the kind of assistance the statute forbids and that they intend to keep doing so. Because the State had not disavowed prosecutions, the threat of enforcement was sufficiently concrete, imminent, and traceable to the defendants to confer standing.

No. 24-50826 (Aug. 29, 2025).