Can you launch court proceedings to challenge the constitutionality of a bill?

[Boojatta]

If you have to wait until a bill has become law, then how does an ordinary, individual citizen ensure a timely and appropriate response from courts?

What tools does an ordinary, individual citizen have to obstruct the enforcement of a law, without violating any law, and without eliciting rage from powerful people who don't necessarily respect the legal rights of an individual?

[merh]

1. What standing would you have?

How would you prove the harm?

If I am not mistake, before the war(s), before troops were deployed, several guard members and service members sued to try to prevent the implementation of the resolutions authorizing the use of the military.

I believe that the suits were dismissed because they could show no harm, no troops had been deployed and they had not been deployed.

[Boojatta]

3. Who said anything about harm?

The question is about constitutionality.

There's no immediate harm in a government removing all fire extinguishers from all government offices under its jurisdiction.

I don't know whether or not a bill requiring such removal of fire extinguishers would be unconstitutional, but surely you would agree that enforcement of such a law would create some risk for government employees, members of the general public who may at some time be physically present in a government office, employees of private sector janitorial companies that have government contracts to do janitorial work in government offices, etc. The risk would exist until government offices again have (functioning) fire extinguishers in them.

[merh]

4. Okay - perfect example of a case would be Smelt.

They sued years back when they were not married, they challenged DOMA. The court dismissed the case because they could not prove their rights had been denied to them. They couldn't establish harm. They had never applied for any benefits a married couple is entitled to so they could never prove the rights were denied them.

[Sanity Claws]

2. Very little

Any suit brought regarding a bill would be considered not ripe or moot; until it is a law, the alleged problem could resolve itself.

Once the bill is enacted, a person can bring suit if they are being directly harmed by it; the harm must be pretty direct. My recollection is that courts generally do not recognize someone's status as a taxpayer as sufficient standing for them to bring suit.

Someone who is being directly harmed or is likely to be directly harmed could file a suit and theoretically get a preliminary injunction while waiting for the court to decide the issue fully.

[aranthus]

5. Launch? Yes. Maintain? No.

Anyone can file a lawsuit against anyone, on anything, for any reason. You could sue your next door neighbor for conspiring with space aliens to melt your house and eat your eyeballs. So, yes, you could sue the state or fed regarding a bill. The case would be quickly dismissed, however.

Several reasons.

First, any court would conclude that the issue is not "ripe" of decision. That's because the bill isn't law. It can still be changed by the Legislature/Congress, or vetoed by the Governor/President.

Second, you might not have standing. Just because you are a citizen doesn't mean that you have the right to sue. You would have to be affected by the law to do that. And you can't be affected by a bill, because it isn't law.

Third, the courts don't render advisory opinions, and until the bill becomes law, that's all it would be.

Fourth, it's an intrusion on the political process and the internal workings of another branch of government, and court's usually don't do that.