The Asymmetry on Standing for Liberals and Conservatives

There are many asymmetries in the law between liberals and conservatives. The Voting Rights Act presents an asymmetry , as the law creates a de facto bonus for Democrats.

Standing doctrine is another significant asymmetry. In theory at least, this procedural doctrine should follow neutral principles, without regard to the merits. But my sense is that standing law is not applied neutrally. More often than not , blue states have standing but red states do not.

This disparity could be chalked up to the preference to dump hard cases on standing grounds to avoid deciding tough issues. But there may be another explanation. Liberals tend to file suits about the enforcement of the law, while conservatives tend to file suits about the non-enforcement of the law. Liberals can usually point to a cl