"Ex-district attorney suggests ways to bolster ethics rules"

Good to talk with Imran Ghori of the Press Enterprise for this piece.   

“You can’t just have a code,” she said by phone last month. “You have to make sure the code is enforced, otherwise it will be largely ignored.”

"California lawmakers’ campaign debt piled high in 2014"

Great to talk to Jim Miller of the Sacramento Bee for this article. 

“You’re not giving to them so they run a competitive campaign. You’re not giving to them so they can get their message out,” campaign-law expert Jessica Levinson, vice president of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, said of campaign donors. “The purpose is, ‘Help me out. I need to retire my campaign debt.’ It’s much more of a specific goal.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article17581991.html#storylink=cpy

"Kamala Harris’ 'bizarre’ move: no press at kickoff event"

Always wonderful to talk to Carla Marinucci of the San Francisco Chronicle. 

“I think, frankly, it’s not a bad calculation. ... She needs time to ramp up and know all the issues. She definitely doesn’t want a 'Katie Couric-Sarah Palin’ moment,” Levinson said, referring to the disastrous interview when Palin was a vice presidential candidate in 2008.

“There’s a big difference between being an attorney general and a U.S. senator,” and answers to the complex questions ahead may require a lot of in-depth preparation, Levinson said. That’s especially true in the age of social media, where answers live forever on YouTube and other sites.

Levinson said there’s no danger that Harris will be put in the same camp as Meg Whitman, the 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate who famously sidestepped reporters’ questions, literally running away from them at one point.

Harris “has seen the microphone before and seems to enjoy it,” Levinson said. “I don’t think she will implode, but she has kicked off her campaign much earlier than other candidates and she is someone who wants finessed answers.”

Harris may also be betting that it is “more harmful for her to have a fairly substantive mistake than it is not to invite the press” to a fundraiser, though she added that in the future, media access will be vital to her perception as a credible candidate.

"Thanks to Obama, the New World of Campaign Finance Is Unlimited and Undisclosed"

Great to talk to Michael Bender of Bloomberg News for this one. 

“If you really want to influence a candidate, or a future candidate, you give to an outside group,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who specializes in election law. “Direct contributions and bundling are increasingly becoming a way of the past.”

"Kamala Harris challenge to 'kill the gays' initiative may fail but still looks shrewd"

Nice to speak with Anita Chabira for this piece in the Guardian.   

“It’s not about the winning,” says Loyola law professor and election law expert Jessica Levinson about Harris’s decision to go to court. “She may feel that this is morally the right thing to do, but I think this is more of a move to impress upon everyone that you have left no stone unturned.”

"California Lawmakers' Spring Break Destinations: Japan, Cuba"

Great to talk to Ben Adler for Capitol Public Radio for this piece.

“We can absolutely look at some of these trips and say, oh, come on, you just wanted a vacation that was paid for by your campaign contributors,” Loyola Law School Professor Jessica Levinson.

But she says it’s important to judge each trip on its own merits. “Not every trip is like that. I think some of these trips are actually useful, fact-finding missions.”