"The campaign money mess"

Here is my latest op-ed. It appears in today's Sacramento Bee. 

Talking about the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act

Looking forward to discussing the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, early voting, same day voter registration, gerrymandering, and more at 5:20 pm with Ian Masters on KPFK.

Supreme vitriol in high court’s dissents

Great to talk with Bob Elegko for this piece by John Diaz in the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Their affection for one another was certainly not reflected in the past two weeks of opinions. As Loyola Law School Professor Jessica Levinson put it to my colleague Bob Egelko last week: “Justice Roberts is invested in upholding the integrity of the institution, and Justice Scalia is calling his colleagues morons.”

U.S. Supreme Court upholds redistricting by independent panels

Great to speak with Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle for this piece. 

The court majority was clearly aware that a contrary decision “would also call into question a host of other laws using direct democracy to affect congressional elections,” said Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

California GOP benefits from redistricting decision as bigger case looms

Wonderful to talk to Cathleen Decker of the Los Angeles Times for this piece. 

"In Arizona, the Republicans are upset today, but in California the Democrats might be a little less happy than they might have been otherwise," said Jessica A. Levinson, clinical professor of law at Loyola Law School, who specializes in election law. "Redistricting can sometimes make for strange bedfellows."

...

"The independent redistricting commissions typically do make life and elections harder for incumbents," Levinson said. "The losers today are self-interested incumbents."

Supreme Court rules that citizens commissions can draw congressional districts

My latest op-ed is in today's Sacramento Bee.

"Supreme Court upholds Arizona political map"

Great to speak with Rebekah Sanders of the Arizona Republic for this piece.

Election-law professor Jessica Levinson said she was surprised by the ruling after arguments in March appeared to favor the Legislature.

"I thought that they would give the constitutional provision a strict and narrow reading," said Levinson, of Loyola Law School. "I thought this was going to be another one of the cases where the court undermines voters rights and protections. This seems like it's a validation of citizens' ability to use their lawmaking power through the process of direct democracy."

After marriage, LGBT activists prepare for next challenge

Always a true pleasure to talk with Carla Marinucci of the SF Chronicle. 

Jessica Levinson, a clinical law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, says it is clear that “even if you have the right to be married, it doesn’t mean you are free from all discrimination — so the next frontier will be looking at discrimination laws.”

“You have to give couples the same rights in employment ... in hospital visits, and there are other instances of discrimination. It’s not the only question,” she said, “but it may be the biggest.”

More here. 

Supreme Court upholds another challenge to the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare)

The 6-3 decision, written by CJ Roberts, is here.

The Court rules that subsidies are available to those who bought their insurance on the federal exchange.

Campaign finance reformers should remain depressed

My latest op-ed was published in the Sacramento Bee today.

"Learn An Entire Semester Of Campaign Finance Law In Less Than 4 Minutes"

Thanks to Huffington Post Live for having me on to discuss. 

Williams-Yulee - A judicial candidate, a potential donor and a lawyer walk into a bar...

Honored to have another piece in the Daily Journal.

"The Problem of Money in Politics"

Honored to be speaking to the League of Women Voters for Los Angeles County on this issue.

"Is the Supreme Court Out of Order?"

Watch Dahlia Lithwick and Linda Greenhouse discuss on Bill Moyers.

"Whatever else it is, Hobby Lobby ruling isn’t narrow"

Good to talk to Steve Sebelius for this one. 

“I really don’t view this as narrow, by any stretch of the imagination,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “It makes ‘sincere religious objection’ a much stronger argument in areas that, quite frankly, we’re not even thinking about.”

Indeed, Levinson said we might have to wait another 20 years to find out precisely how broad Monday’s ruling really is, as corporations object to other laws and regulations on religious grounds.

Most troubling, Winkler and Levinson said, is the fact that while justices said laws against racial discrimination would probably withstand an attack on religious grounds, they left unmentioned laws prohibiting discrimination against gays, lesbians and transgender people. And it’s much more likely that a corporation would seek religiously based exemption from laws covering anti-gay discrimination than they would laws protecting racial minorities.

We’ll wrestle with that question, and perhaps many, many more, because Congress decided it could not leave undisturbed a perfectly reasonable set of Supreme Court precedents. Let no one ever say that pandering does not have consequences.

What was SCOTUS up to today?

Well, a little bit of this (down with Aero) and a little bit of that (up with privacy for cell phone users).

SCOTUS rules there is Art. III standing to challenge a false statement law

The Supremes issue a unanimous opinion in Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehause.

The opinion is here.

More from the indispensable SCOTUSblog here.

This could be big for voting rights: "Supreme Court to Hear Ala. Redistricting Challenge"

Here.

My speech at the 28th Amendment "Roadshow" at UCLA

A history of campaign finance law in 20 min or less...here.

"So Cal Political Races, Infomercials & a Bullying Law"

Here is my interview with Madeleine Brand on KCRW's Press Play. We talked about Obamajams, campaign financing, and McCutcheon v. FEC.