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Historically, conservatives argued for a narrow approach to standing. There were practical as well as legal reasons for this: When courts were less sympathetic to conservative causes, as in the years of the Warren and Burger Courts, there were good reasons to keep progressive social movements and individual plaintiffs out of court. Now that Donald Trump has reshaped the federal judiciary, the roles have reversed: Conservatives are the ones promoting exotic and broad new ideas about standing—and rushing to settle issues in federal court they fear they would lose if voters were given the right to decide.

Corporate lobbyists are “pleading for extension of three key tax breaks” in a year-end tax package, Bloomberg reports — a tax package that Democrats insist must include an expansion of the Child Tax Credit. The three corporate tax breaks on lobbyists’ wish list: immediate expensing of research and experimentation costs (R&E), more generous deductions for interest expenses, and full expensing of capital investment costs. Each of these corporate provisions has issues, but full expensing in particular sticks out as highly problematic because its true revenue cost is masked by timing gimmicks.

Judis and Teixeira end their important study by noting that a Democratic Party that is liberal on economics and “moderate and conciliatory” on cultural issues would be broadly successful. They are not advocating an abandonment of liberal values or a split-the-difference moderation but a return to commonsense views held by the party as recently as a decade ago.