As state-led lawsuits against the federal government reach record highs, pressure has mounted to use the standing doctrine to keep these state suits out of court. Scholars and attorneys for the federal government, from both the Trump and Biden administrations, have argued for narrowing the pathways that allow states to assert their standing to sue. But the Supreme Court has so far declined to take that step. Meanwhile state plaintiffs are winning on the merits of their claims, with courts granting relief in case after case. The success of these lawsuits suggests that state standing is not a problem to be solved. It is a system working as it should: by ensuring that states with real injuries have a path to redress in court, across the political spectrum.
Background on State Standing
State cases against the federal government have grown over the last three decades. As Professor Paul Nolette has tracked, state suits against the federal government have grown from under 20 cases during President Reagan and President H.W. Bush’s administrations to 55 during the first Obama term, to over 100 cases each during the first Trump administration and the Biden administration. This growth has only continued over the past year. As of March 31, 2026, Just Security’s Litigation Tracker has logged 95 cases filed by states against the current federal administration.
State plaintiffs can bring claims against the federal government in three ways:
1. They can show financial injury. Like ordinary plaintiffs, states can argue that their financial interests, sometimes called proprietary or pecuniary interests, have been or are being harmed. This can happen when the federal government claws back money for state run programs, harms state property, or generally harms a state’s economy by negatively affecting tourism, employment, state contracts, or investment in state businesses. Over the last year, there have been a number of states suing over denials of federal grants, like the multi-state lawsuit against the Office of Management and Budget for terminating billions of dollars in grants already awarded to states. In that suit, the states argue financial harm on the grounds that the money had been promised, states relied on it, and the loss of funding hurt their operations and budgets, threatening the existence of various state programs.
2. They can show that the federal action violates their sovereign rights. States can argue that a federal government policy affects their sovereign right to create and enforce a legal code by intruding on state governance. This includes the federal government commandeering states and forcing them to enact federal programs. These injuries can involve financial impacts, like when the federal government forces a state to take on an increased regulatory or administrative burden. At their core these cases are about the effects on the state’s ability to provide government services and make and enforce state law. The recent lawsuits over federal attempts to control the National Guard of various states are an example. In their complaints, Illinois, California, and Oregon argued that the federalization of their state National Guard infringed on their right to self-governance and the police powers granted to states under the Tenth Amendment.
3. They can bring an action as a “parens patriae.” In addition to both financial harms and sovereign harms, quasi-sovereign or “parens patriae” standing allows a state to stand in the shoes of the people of their state who are being harmed by a federal decision and attempt to stop that harm. For example, a state could sue over environmental harms in the name of the health and well-being, both physical and economic, of their state residents. Fifteen states sued over an executive order directing federal agencies to forgo environmental reviews, arguing that it would harm their quasi-sovereign interests in the land and air within the state which residents rely on for sustenance and recreation.
The three injuries can overlap, with one federal action causing injury in more than one way. States can also argue for “special solicitude” while asserting these injuries. In 2007, the Supreme Court adopted the doctrine of “special solicitude” for state standing in Massachusetts v. EPA, when states sued over the Bush administration’s refusal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and asserted a mix of financial, sovereign, and quasi-sovereign harms along with a statutory right to sue. In that case, the Supreme Court found that states had given up some of their sovereign rights when joining the union, and should be able to assert their rights against the federal government when the federal government was abdicating its responsibility under federal law. While “special solicitude” is most often asserted in conjunction with another kind of harm, it is sometimes considered as an additional reason or plus factor in favor of giving special consideration to state standing.
As a result of the growth in state suits against the federal government, a debate has erupted over whether to restrict states from bringing these cases in the first place. On the one hand, scholars argue that there are important benefits to states being able to bring suits against the federal government because they can represent aggregate interests and can be presumed to represent the public interest, despite the potential to cave to political or lobbying pressure. But other scholars argue that states have so many programs that they can sue over virtually anything. This, academics warn, could create injury over “an almost infinite number of federal actions.” According to one author, states might use their asserted injuries as “a pretext for airing their political disagreements” with federal policies, which another author warns creates the perception that federal courts are turning “into a political battleground.” Similarly, the doctrine of special solicitude has been criticized as wrongly suggesting that states have a special interest in how the federal government implements federal law.
However, two recent bids by both the Biden administration and the Trump administration to get the Supreme Court to reconsider and limit state standing have failed, indicating that, at least for now, the Supreme Court does not see it as a problem needing a solution.
United States v. Texas (2023)
The Biden-era Solicitor General made an argument to narrow a state’s ability to sue in United States v. Texas, a 2023 case about immigration enforcement policies. After the Biden administration shifted immigration enforcement priorities, Texas argued that it had standing because it would have to spend more money on government services for the people that the federal government was not deporting. The federal government argued that this indirect financial harm should not be enough. The Court did not take the U.S. Solicitor General’s invitation to restrict standing of states to sue based on “indirect” harms, instead finding that Texas did not have standing simply because the harms were not “redressable” by the court. Courts do not have the authority to order “the Executive Branch to take enforcement actions against violators of federal law…by making more arrests,” so the Court could not remedy Texas’ problem, preventing the lawsuit from going forward. The Court avoided having to rule on the federal government’s position about indirect harms, but at oral argument Justice Alito clearly expressed concern with going down that path, saying that he thought the federal government was pressing for a doctrine of “special hostility” toward state standing, when Massachusetts held that states are due “special solicitude.”
State of Washington v. Trump (2025)
The question of state standing was raised again in a case brought by Washington and a coalition of states regarding birthright citizenship. In Washington, states argue they have standing because the new Executive Order stripping the citizenship of people born and raised in plaintiff states harms the states’ sovereign, proprietary, and quasi-sovereign interests. According to the states, as newborn residents are denied citizenship under the Executive Order, they become ineligible to receive federal funded benefits, forcing more people to rely on state-only funded benefits.The federal government responded with arguments about how these indirect injuries are insufficient to show standing for the states. The Ninth Circuit rejected that argument and held that the states had shown standing as they asserted injuries based on their own expenses and because the Executive Order on birthright citizenship directly affected the states. The federal government asked the Supreme Court to review the case, again making standing arguments against the Washington-led coalition. The Court has relisted the petition, putting off a decision on whether to hear that case for now. Meanwhile, the Court did take up the issue of birthright citizenship, but in a different case — not the state plaintiff case — and argument is going to be held on April 1. By taking the individual-plaintiff birthright citizenship case rather than the Washington-led state coalition, the Court sidestepped the standing question for the second time in two years, a pattern that suggests the majority is not inclined to adopt the government’s narrowing position.
State Standing is Working
New cases by state plaintiffs are filed against the federal government nearly every week. The numbers are up, but, as indicated by the Supreme Court’s inaction, state standing might not necessarily be the five-alarm fire that some academics believe it to be. These cases present live controversies, usually involving multiple overlapping kinds of harm, including the traditional financial injury. When suits use state-specific forms of standing, like sovereign and quasi-sovereign harm, they invoke fundamental Constitutional principles and landmark Supreme Court decisions rather than stretching the bounds of standing, as seen in New York v. Trump (a case about wind energy) and the National Guard cases, both discussed below. State standing doctrines are also used across political party lines, like the state plaintiffs’ decision to invoke Massachusetts v. EPA in Iowa v. Wright, a case brought by Iowa about electric vehicles — also discussed below. At the end of the day, courts are frequently finding cognizable injuries and a legitimate claim for relief, suggesting that these are lawsuits that deserve their day in court.
States Are Alleging Overlapping Harms
Many of the recent state cases against the federal government show states asserting multiple levels of overlapping harms. Instead of invoking vague, indirect injuries, states are suing over documented financial harm and the harms they are experiencing to important governance decisions.
Take, for example, a recent case about the federal government’s decision to withhold funds allocated to the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program. In Washington v. United States Department of Transportation, states sued over sovereign and financial injuries after an executive order directed agencies to withhold funds for the program. The decision, they argued, affected their proprietary interests because it took money out of the state budget that was meant to build up the charging infrastructure. Plaintiffs allege that the federal government’s action “deprived [plaintiff states] of access to approximately $1 billion in available NEVI Formula Program funds” between 2022 to 2025. It also affected plans to install charging stations along travel corridors in many states, like Oregon’s plans to build charging infrastructure along eleven major travel corridors. A judge granted fourteen states a preliminary injunction and then, later, summary judgment ordering the federal government to release the funds, with the court reiterating that the government’s arguments concerning state standing were “decisively rejected.”
In another case, California v. United States Department of Transportation, states again sued in both their sovereign and financial capacities. The federal DOT decided to withhold funding to state and local governments who refused to comply with federal immigration enforcement policies, so 20 state governments sued, alleging separation of powers issues and a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). In granting summary judgment in favor of the states, Rhode Island District Court Judge McConnell found cognizable injury and wrote that the “Hobson’s choice” of states either surrendering their sovereign interests in managing their own law enforcement or losing billions of dollars in federal funding was a harm that justified his order against the federal government. (For other examples of cases involving federal funding conditions, see Illinois v. Fed. Emergency Mgmt. Agency and Illinois v. Noem.)
In both of these cases, already-promised state funding was withheld, presenting a clear and direct financial injury, the likes of which could also get an ordinary plaintiff into court. States also argued that the withholding of funding affected their governing prerogatives, with the courts in both instances awarding relief on that basis as well. States are not getting into court by suing over political disagreements—they are asserting multiple legitimate injuries at once.
Established Standing Arguments Are Meeting the Moment
When cases present arguments about standing based on sovereign and quasi-sovereign interests, states are using established doctrinal moves, even within novel contexts. Far from stretching the standing doctrine, states are instead proceeding along recognized pathways to obtain relief in unprecedented scenarios.
In New York v. Trump, after a Presidential Memorandum suddenly and categorically halted federal approvals, permitting, and leasing for wind energy projects, states argued that stopping wind development harmed their ability to get reliable energy sources and fight pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The government argued that the states were not directly affected, because the alleged injury is too broad, unspecific, and speculative, ungrounded in the impact of the Memorandum. However, the district court gave the state plaintiffs “special solicitude” in standing on a motion to dismiss because they were asserting a “congressionally bestowed procedural right” under the APA and the federal government’s action affected their quasi-sovereign interests, including economic interests. This move harks back to the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Massachusetts, providing states with a path to standing based on a broader injury related to quasi-sovereign interests. Ultimately in the wind case, 17 states and the District of Columbia received relief when the judge declared the order unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act.
Several of the state cases this past year are about the decisions that the federal government has made to deploy National Guard troops in Democratic-led jurisdictions under 10 U.S.C. § 12406, which authorizes the President to call the National Guard into federal service in cases of invasion, rebellion, or inability to execute federal law. In Oregon v. Trump, 200 members of the Oregon National Guard were federalized, or called into service as part of the federal military instead of serving the state governor. Oregon filed suit alleging that the legal requirements for federalization were not met and the federal government was infringing on Oregon’s state sovereignty, protected under the Tenth Amendment. The federal government had unlawfully taken over the state’s police power by commandeering their National Guard, Oregon said, and “by singling out a particular disfavored jurisdiction for political retribution, these actions also eviscerate[d] the constitutional principle that the states’ sovereignty should be treated equally.” The district court found that Oregon had standing and issued a permanent injunction based on sovereign harm, recognizing that the intrusion on state sovereignty was an “especially significant” constitutional injury. In Newsom v. Trump, California sued after the California National Guard was federalized, also alleging that the federal government acted in excess of statutory authority and was infringing on state sovereignty by taking over the state power to police. In granting California’s motion for a preliminary injunction, the district court found a likelihood of irreparable harm based on constitutional sovereignty claims under the Tenth Amendment, writing that “[d]efendants’ argument for a president to hold unchecked power to control state troops would wholly upend the federalism that is at the heart of our system of government.”
In these cases, states addressed novel and expansive harms but did so using established principles not by stretching state standing beyond appropriate bounds. Even if states were alleging that the federal government was acting in an unprecedented manner, states themselves asserted standing on well-recognized grounds.
State Standing Has Bipartisan Uses
Arguments about sovereign and quasi-sovereign harms are made by states across the political spectrum too. In Iowa v. Wright, a suit against a Biden-era Department of Energy rule, as one recent example, Iowa and a number of other states (traditionally seen as more conservative) cited quasi-sovereign harms to argue that DOE’s final rule would increase energy consumption, which would in turn increase greenhouse emissions, raise global sea levels, and erode state sovereign territory on their coasts. To make the argument, the Iowa-led coalition relied on Massachusetts v. EPA, discussed above, which was a case where Massachusetts demanded EPA regulate climate change emissions. These doctrines and arguments clearly protect states—and they don’t break down along partisan lines.
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Recent state-led cases against the federal government demonstrate the range of legitimate, serious injuries that states are successfully asserting in court under the current doctrines of state standing. This holds true across party lines and within unprecedented factual scenarios. States play an important role in the federalist system and lawsuits against the federal government are a part of that. As two authors have argued, “special solicitude” allows states to step into the “shoes of the federal government where it has failed to uphold its end of the federalism grand bargain.” The debate will likely continue as states keep suing, but the Supreme Court has so far declined recent opportunities to restrict states. State standing is working, allowing states to seek remedies for injuries to funding and state property, their constitutional role as a sovereign over state residents, and the quasi-sovereign well-being of state residents themselves.
