Taxpayer Standing

Suppose Congress passes an omnibus education bill that includes, among many other provisions, the following two sections:

1. One provision in the law provides college scholarship funds for minority students defined on the basis of race and ethnicity.

2. A second provision provides for funding vouchers for parents who send their children to non-public K-12 schools (including private religious schools).

3. Yet another federal law provides funding for abortions under the Medicaid program.

Eugene Busybody, a federal taxpayer, files three lawsuits in federal court challenging the constitutionality of these programs. In lawsuit #1, he challenges the minority scholarship program as violating the Equal Protection Clause, in lawsuit #2 he challenges the voucher plan as violating the Establishment Clause (since religious schools will benefit), and in case # 3 he challenges the abortion funding provision under the Free Exercise Clause claiming that it violates his religious convictions to be forced to contribute to the funding of abortions, which his church teaches is a taking of an innocent human life.

Does he have standing as a taxpayer to bring these lawsuits?

See Carl H. Esbeck, Taxpayer Standing from Flast to Hein, (Mississippi Law Journal Online, Vol. 80, 2010).