Democracy Town Hall: Lessons of the 2020 Election

The Participants

Moderator: Dean Erwin Chemerinsky

Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law

Erwin Chemerinsky became the 13th Dean of Berkeley Law on July 1, 2017, when he joined the faculty as the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law. Prior to assuming this position, from 2008-2017, he was the founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law, and Raymond Pryke Professor of First Amendment Law, at University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science. He also has taught at Duke, USC, DePaul College of Law and UCLA Law School. 

He is the author of eleven books, including leading casebooks and treatises about constitutional law, criminal procedure, and federal jurisdiction. Read more.

 

Professor Rick Hasen

Chancellor’s Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law

Professor Richard L. Hasen is Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. Hasen is a nationally recognized expert in election law and campaign finance regulation, writing as well in the areas of legislation and statutory interpretation, remedies, and torts. He is co-author of leading casebooks in election law and remedies. He is also a CNN Election Law Analyst. From 2001-2010, he served (with Dan Lowenstein) as founding co-editor of the quarterly peer-reviewed publication, Election Law Journal. He is the author of over 100 articles on election law issues, published in numerous journals including the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review and Supreme Court Review. Read more.

 

Professor Jessica Levinson

Professor of Law, Loyola Law School

Jessica Levinson studies the law of the political process, including election law and governance issues. Her work focuses on ethics, political corruption, voting rights, campaign finance, ballot initiatives, redistricting, term limits, and state budgets.

Levinson regularly appears as a legal and political expert on television and radio and in print. She is the founding director of Loyola Law School’s Public Service Institute, which is dedicated to creating the next generation of leaders in government service. Read more.

 

Professor Bertrall Ross

Chancellor’s Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law

Bertrall Ross’s research interests are driven by a normative concern about democratic responsiveness and a methodological approach that integrates political theory and empirical social science into discussions of legal doctrine, the institutional role of courts, and democratic design. In the area of legislation, his current research seeks to address how courts should reconcile legislative supremacy with the vexing problem of interpreting statutes in contexts not foreseen by the enacting legislature. In election law, he is examining the constitutional dimensions and the structural sources of the marginalization of the poor in the American political process. Read more.

 

Professor Franita Tolson

Professor of Law, University of Southern California

Franita Tolson is Vice Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at University of Southern California Gould School of Law and a nationally recognized expert in election law. Her scholarship and teaching focus on the areas of election law, constitutional law, legal history and employment discrimination. She has written on a wide range of topics including partisan gerrymandering, political parties, the Elections Clause, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Her research has appeared in leading law reviews including the Yale Law Journal, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review and Boston University Law Review. Her forthcoming book, In Congress We Trust?: Enforcing Voting Rights from the Founding to the Jim Crow Era, will be published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press. Read more.