Campaign Legal Center v. Scott, 49 F.4th 931

Background

Texas Secretary of State ran DPS citizenship-data matches against voter rolls and flagged ~11,246 registrants as potential noncitizens; 278 were later confirmed noncitizens. The Secretary shared most related data with counties but withheld names and voter ID numbers citing privacy and the Texas Public Information Act.
Plaintiffs are civic and voting-rights organizations that requested full records (including names and voter ID numbers) under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) public-disclosure provision and sued when the Secretary declined to produce them.
The district court enjoined Texas to produce detailed information about each flagged registrant; the Secretary appealed and sought a stay.
On appeal the Fifth Circuit limited its review to Article III standing and found the plaintiffs failed to prove a concrete, particularized injury in fact.
The court held that under Supreme Court precedent (Spokeo and TransUnion) plaintiffs asserting an informational injury must identify concrete "downstream consequences" from the nondisclosure; plaintiffs failed to do so and also lacked organizational or representational standing because none are Texas voters or represent affected Texas voters.
The Fifth Circuit reversed the injunction and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Article III standing to sue under the NVRA public-disclosure provision	Civic organizations have a statutory right to NVRA records and therefore standing to enforce disclosure; nondisclosure injures their informational interests and ability to identify wrongly flagged voters	Plaintiffs lack a concrete, particularized injury; mere statutory entitlement to information is insufficient under Spokeo/TransUnion absent concrete downstream harms	No standing: plaintiffs failed to show concrete, particularized injury or downstream consequences; dismissal required
Whether an informational injury alone (statutory nondisclosure) is sufficient	Rely on precedents like Akins and Public Citizen to argue denial of statutorily required information can be a concrete injury	TransUnion requires downstream consequences; Spokeo mandates a concrete injury even for statutory violations	TransUnion and Spokeo control: nondisclosure alone is insufficient without downstream consequences; plaintiffs failed to identify them
Whether plaintiffs’ generalized public-interest and transparency arguments suffice	Public visibility into voter-roll maintenance and prevention of discriminatory burdens on voters constitute concrete harms	These are generalized public interests, not particularized injuries to the plaintiffs themselves; speculative future harms do not confer standing	Generalized transparency/informational interests are insufficient absent concrete, particularized harms to the plaintiffs
Organizational or representational standing based on third-party voters or former clients	Plaintiffs claimed they would use records to advise former settlement clients and to protect voters	Plaintiffs did not show they represent Texas voters or have an attorney-client relationship with settling parties; claims are speculative	Plaintiffs lack organizational/third-party standing; theory forfeited below and insufficient in any event

Key Cases Cited

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992) (Article III standing requirements)
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016) (statutory violation requires a concrete injury)
TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct. 2190 (2021) (informational injuries require downstream consequences to establish Article III standing)
FEC v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11 (1998) (public-disclosure denials can constitute injury where plaintiffs show concrete informational harms)
Public Citizen v. Department of Justice, 491 U.S. 440 (1989) (denial of statutorily required records can create Article III injury)
Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 568 U.S. 398 (2013) (speculative future harms are insufficient; injury must be certainly impending)
Trichell v. Midland Credit Mgmt., 964 F.3d 990 (11th Cir. 2020) (articulating the "downstream consequences" framework for informational injuries)
Laufer v. Mann Hosp., Inc., 996 F.3d 269 (5th Cir. 2021) (plaintiff lacked standing where no personal consequences flowed from alleged disclosure violation)
Elec. Priv. Info. Ctr. v. Presidential Advisory Comm’n on Election Integrity, 878 F.3d 371 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (limitations on asserting standing on behalf of third parties)
Vote.org v. Callanen, 39 F.4th 297 (5th Cir. 2022) (organizational-standing principles)