Jessica A. Levinson

Jessica A. Levinson, Clinical Professor of Law Director of Loyola Law School’s Public Service Institute

Expertise

Election Law; Constitutional Law

Biography

Jessica Levinson studies the law of the political process, including election law and governance issues. Her work focuses on ethics, political corruption, voting rights, Constitutional law, 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 has a weekly legal segment on a NPR member station in Los Angeles, KCRW. She also frequently contributes op-ed pieces to NBC.com. In addition, she regularly appears on MSNBC, CNN, CNNi, CBS, CBSLA, NBC, and Fox News. She is also often quoted in the print media, including in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, Reuters, USA Today, U.S. News and World Report, the Los Angeles Times, and Politico.

Levinson served as the President of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission. She was appointed by the Los Angeles City Controller in 2013 to serve a five-year term.

Levinson 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.

Levinson has presented papers and given lectures at the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of California at Los Angeles Law School, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of San Francisco School of Law, the University of California Hastings College of Law, Scripps College and California State Fullerton.

While in law school, Levinson was the Senior Articles Editor of the Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review. Following graduation, Levinson served as a law clerk to the Honorable James V. Selna from 2005-06. She then practiced with the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. Professor Levinson began teaching as an Adjunct Professor at Loyola in 2009. From 2008-11, Levinson served as the Director of Political Reform at the Center for Governmental Studies.

Publications, Research and Related Material

Courses Taught

Election Law
Campaigns and Elections (at LMU)
Money, Politics and the Supreme Court
Campaign Finance Seminar
Law and Process: Privacy Torts
Marital Property

Education

BA, magna cum laude, valedictorian, Loyola Marymount University
JD, cum laude, Order of the Coif, Loyola Law School

Selected Scholarship

(The papers listed below can be found here).

“Full Disclosure: The Next Frontier in Campaign Finance Law,” 93 Denver L. Rev 231 (2016).
“Taking the Initiative: How to Save Direct Democracy,” 18 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 1019 (2014).
“The Original Sin of Campaign Finance Law: Why Buckley v. Valeo is Wrong,” 47 University of Richmond Law Review 881 (2013).
“We the Corporations? The Constitutionality of Limitations on Corporate Electoral Speech After Citizens United,” 46 U.S.F. L. Rev. 307 (2011) .
“Timing Is Everything: A New Model for Countering Corruption Without Silencing Speech in Elections,” 55 St. Louis U. L.J. 853 (2011).
“Is the Party Over? The Open Primary Process,” 44 Loy. L. Rev. 461 (2011).
“Amicus Curiae Brief for the Center for Governmental Studies in Support of Respondents,” in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom PAC v. Bennet, Nos. 10-238 and 10-239 (lead author, filed February 2011).
“Ballot Box Budgeting in California: The Bane of the Golden State or an Overstated Problem?” (co-author with Bob Stern), 37 Hastings Const. L.Q. 101 (publication in Spring 2010).
“Bite Your Tongue in Europe: The European Court of Human Rights Strikes a Blow to the Freedom of Expression,” 26 Loy. L.A. Int’l& Comp. L. Rev. 483 (2004).