Election Law and Democracy

A two-day conference, hosted by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Social Justice, examined election law and electoral systems impact communities of color

In his last lecture to the J.D. and LL.M. classes of 2023, Michael Klarman celebrates civil rights heroes and issues a clarion call for democratic engagement.

Civil rights leader Sherrilyn Ifill encourages an examination of institutions and urges the inclusion of marginalized voices.

As the inaugural Fred N. Fishman Professor of Constitutional Law, Laura Weinrib described the arc of union power in the 20th century and its relationship to political spending.

Harvard Law School’s Election Law Clinic partners with organizers in Jacksonville, Florida to score important victories for voting rights.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin argues that a Constitutional amendment enshrining the right to vote would demonstrate ‘absolute commitment’ to full participation in U.S. democracy.

On Friday, September 16, Election Law Clinic clinical instructor Daniel Hessel led the plaintiff’s oral arguments during Jacksonville Branch of the NAACP v. City of Jacksonville’s preliminary injunction hearing, arguing against the use of racially biased redistricting maps in the 2023 and 2024 city council and school board elections.  

Harvard Law Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos explains how the Alabama redistricting case could affect the future of the Voting Rights Act.

The Election Law Clinic, led by Ruth Greenwood, visiting assistant clinical professor, focuses on voter suppression, gerrymandering, and the challenges money poses to democratic participation.

An election law course examines doctrine and asks students to consider ‘the way things ought to be, and how to make them happen’

Harvard Law School election law expert Ruth Greenwood applauds the Biden administration’s support for new voting legislation, but says the filibuster remains an obstacle to finishing the job.

Social media’s business model of personalized virality is incompatible with democracy, agreed experts at a recent Harvard Law School discussion on the state of democracy.

Nicholas Stephanopoulos was a second-year law student when the Supreme Court ruled — unsatisfactorily, he believed — on the Pennsylvania gerrymandering case Vieth v. Jubelirer. For Stephanopoulos, it was a game-changer: election law, democratic theory, and the American electoral system have since come to dominate his career.

The state of American democracy will be examined in a lecture series, "Democracy," which had its first session this week and will continue through the fall and spring.

With the start of the academic year, a look at nine faculty who have joined Harvard Law School, been promoted, or taken on new roles in 2021.

“We were prepared for everything with regard to this last election cycle, except for the levels to which people would stoop to try to stop democracy and deny the voice of the people,” says Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson ’04.

Harvard Law Today spoke with Ruth Greenwood about the new Election Law Clinic and why she thinks it is important to train a new generation of lawyers to practice in this burgeoning field.

Harvard Law School has announced the launch the new Election Law Clinic, which will give students the opportunity to work on a broad range of cutting-edge issues in areas such as redistricting, voting rights, campaign finance, and party regulation.

The effect of COVID-19 on the law has been transformative and wide-ranging, but as a Harvard Law School panel pointed out on the one-year anniversary of campus shutdown, the changes haven’t all been for the worse.

In a Q&A with Harvard Law Today, Congressman Jamie Raskin ’87, who served as lead House impeachment manager, reflects on a time of trauma and hope.

Harvard Law Visiting Professor Sanford Levinson puts the storming of the Capitol in historical perspective.