Supreme Court June 2017 Experts

Supreme Court

Loyola Professors' Expertise on SCOTUS Gerrymandering Case

Loyola Law School, Los Angeles professors are available to comment on Gill v. Whitford, the Wisconsin gerrymandering case scheduled for oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 3, 2017.

Experts

  • Professor Jessica Levinson, Los Angeles Ethics Commission president who published the op-ed “The Supreme Court’s most consequential decision of the year” in the Sacramento Bee, says: “This term the U.S. Supreme Court could help determine the balance of power between Republicans and Democrats in city halls, state capitols and the District of Columbia for decades to come. The court has never defined when a political party goes too far when drawing district lines to maximize their political power. Put another way, we don’t know when and if partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional. But this is likely to change with the court's decision in Gill v. Whitford.”
  • Professor Justin Levitt, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote in August offered suggestions on how the Supreme Court’s might find a test for evaluating a redistricting policy. “When evaluating excessive politics that may underlie a redistricting map, the Supreme Court should be asking not ‘how much,’ but ‘what kind.’ That slight change of question provides the distinction the court has been seeking, one firmly grounded in the Constitution.

To reach either professor for commentary, please contact Brian Costello at brian.costello@lls.edu or 213-736-1444, or Melissa Abraham at melissa.abraham@lls.edu or 213-736-1445.