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Webcast: A live Webcast of the event will be available here.
Please save the date for an all-day symposium bringing together leaders in the field of Election Law from law, political science, economics and history to honor the pioneering work of Daniel Hays Lowenstein, who is retiring from UCLA School of Law to begin service as the founding director for UCLA's Center for the Study of Liberal Arts and Free Institutions. Papers from the conference will be published in the UCLA Law Review and the Election Law Journal.
8:00 Continental breakfast/registration
8:20 Welcoming Remarks
Stephen Yeazell, Interim Dean, University of California Los Angeles School of Law
8:30 - 10:15 Panel I. Voting Rights After NAMUDNO
Chair:
Mark Rush
Robert G. Brown Professor of Politics and Law
Head, Department of Politics
Washington and Lee University
Papers:
Stephen Ansolabehere
Professor
Department of Government, Harvard University
Bernard Grofman
Jack W. Peltason Endowed Chair, Professor of Political Science and
Adjunct Professor of Economics; Director, Center for the Study of Democracy
University of California, Irvine
J. Morgan Kousser
Prof. of History and Social Science
California Institute of Technology
Discussants:
Heather K. Gerken
J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law
Yale Law School
Mark Rush
Robert G. Brown Professor of Politics and Law
Head, Department of Politics
Washington and Lee University
10:15-10:30 Break
10:30-12:15 Panel II. Campaign Finance
Chair:
Adam Winkler
Professor of Law
UCLA School of Law
Papers:
Richard Briffault
Joseph P. Chamberlain Professor of Legislation
Columbia Law School
Gary C. Jacobson
Professor of Political Science
University of California, San Diego
Jurij Toplak
Assistant Professor
University of Maribor Law School, Slovenia
Discussants:
Barbara Sinclair
Professor of Political Science, Emerita
UCLA
Richard H. Pildes
Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law
New York University School of Law
12:15-1:00 Lunch
1:00-2:45 Panel III. Election Administration and Competitiveness in Elections
Chair:
Richard L. Hasen
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
Papers:
Edward B. Foley
Director, Election Law Moritz, &
Robert M. Duncan/Jones Day Designated Professor of Law
Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law
Nathaniel Persily
Charles Keller Beekman Professor of Law and Political Science
Columbia Law School
Daniel P. Tokaji
Associate Professor of Law
The Ohio State University, Moritz College of Law
Discussants:
Samuel Issacharoff
Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law
New York University School of Law
Bradley A. Smith
Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law
Capital University Law School, Columbus, OH
2:45-3:00 Break
3:00- 4:45 Panel IV. Direct Democracy
Chair:
Bruce E. Cain
Heller Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley
and Director of the UC Washington Center
Papers:
Elizabeth Garrett
France R. and John J. Duggan Professor of Law, Political Science and Public Policy
Co-Director, USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics
University of Southern California
Mathew D. McCubbins
Provost Professor of Business, Law and Political Science
Co-Director, USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics
University of Southern California
Craig Burnett
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science
University of California San Diego
Elisabeth R. Gerber
Professor, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Center for Political
Studies, University of Michigan
Richard L. Hasen
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
John G. Matsusaka
Charles F. Sexton Chair in American Enterprise
Marshall School of Business, Gould School of Law, & Department of Political Science
University of Southern California
Discussants:
Bruce E. Cain
Heller Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley
and Director of the UC Washington Center
John S. Shockley
Professor of Political Science, Emeritus
Augsburg College
Minneapolis, MN
4:45-5:00 Break
5:00-6:15 Panel V. Reflections on Lowenstein's Scholarship
Chair:
Richard L. Hasen
William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
Papers:
Bruce E. Cain
Heller Professor of Political Science, UC Berkeley
and Director of the UC Washington Center
Discussant:
Daniel Hays Lowenstein
Professor of Law, Emeritus
Director, Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions
UCLA Law School
Sponsors:
UCLA School of Law
USC-Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics
UCLA Law Review
Election Law Journal
UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies
About Dan Lowenstein's Contributions to Election Law
The field of election law has grown exponentially in recent decades, thanks in no small part to the pioneering work of Dan Lowenstein. Professor Lowenstein worked as a staff attorney at California Rural Legal Assistance for two and one-half years. While working for California's Secretary of State, Edmund G. Brown Jr. in 1971, he specialized in election law, and was the main drafter of the Political Reform Act, an initiative statute that California voters approved in 1974, thereby creating a new Fair Political Practices Commission. Governor Brown appointed Professor Lowenstein as first chairman of the Commission. He has served on the UCLA faculty since 1979, teaching a variety of courses, including election law and legislation.
Professor Lowenstein's textbook, Election Law (1995), was the first text on American election law since 1877. In the years after his book was published, the field of election law exploded, both in terms of the amount and range of scholarship produced as well as public interest in the subject.
Professor Lowenstein has written seminal work on virtually every important issue in election law including: initiatives and direct democracy; partisan and racial gerrymandering; political party associational rights and issues related to party primaries and caucuses; campaign finance and political bribery; election administration; and the role of competitiveness in election law jurisprudence. Since 2002, Dan has served as co-editor of the only peer-reviewed scholarly journal devoted to electoral issues, the Election Law Journal.
His work is careful yet provocative. It has been cited and debated in Supreme Court opinions and in law review and political science articles too numerous to count. Professor Lowenstein's decision to take emeritus status at the law school and take up a new position as director of UCLA's new Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions provides a great opportunity to bring together the leading election law scholars in the country and produce excellent election law scholarship, which will be a fitting tribute to his leadership over the years.
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