Biography

Professor Richard L. Hasen is an internationally recognized expert in election law, 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. Hasen served in 2020 as a CNN Election Law Analyst and in 2022 serves as an NBC News/MSNBC Election Law Analyst. He directs UCLA Law’s Safeguarding Democracy Project.

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. He was elected to The American Law Institute in 2009 and serves as Reporter (with Professor Douglas Laycock) on the ALI’s law reform project: Restatement (Third) of Torts: Remedies. He also is an adviser on the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Concluding Provisions.

Professor Hasen was named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by The National Law Journal in 2013, and one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California in 2005 and 2016 by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal.

His op-eds and commentaries have appeared in many publications, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Politico, and Slate. Hasen also writes the often-quoted Election Law Blog, which the ABA Journal named to its “Blawg 100 Hall of Fame” in 2015. The Green Bag recognized his 2018 book, The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption, for exemplary legal writing, and his 2016 book, Plutocrats United, received a Scribes Book Award Honorable Mention. His most recent book, Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics—and How to Cure It, published in March 2022 by Yale University Press, was named one of the four best books on disinformation by the New York Times.

Professor Hasen holds a B.A. degree (with highest honors) from UC Berkeley, and a J.D., M.A., and Ph.D. (Political Science) from UCLA. After law school, Hasen clerked for the Honorable David R. Thompson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and then worked as a civil appellate lawyer at the Encino firm Horvitz and Levy.

From 1994-1997, Hasen taught at the Chicago-Kent College of Law and from 1998-2011 he taught at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, where he was named the William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law in 2005. From 2011-2022, Hasen was Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine and Co-Director of the Fair Elections and Free Speech Center. He was a visiting professor at UCLA Law twice before joining the faculty in 2022.

Education

B.A. degree (with highest honors) UC Berkeley
J.D. UCLA
M.A. UCLA
Ph.D. (Political Science) UCLA

Selected Publications

• Election Law—Cases and Materials (with Daniel Hays Lowenstein, Daniel P. Tokaji, and Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos). Carolina Academic Press (2022). Prior editions: 6th, 2017; 5th, 2012; 4th, 2008; 3rd 2004; 2nd, 2001.
• Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics—and How to Cure It. Yale University Press (2022).
• Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy. Yale University Press (2020).
• The Glannon Guide to Torts: Learning Torts through Multiple-Choice Questions and Analysis. 4th ed. Wolters Kluwer (2020). Prior editions: 3rd, 2016; 2nd, 2011; 1st, 2009.
• Modern American Remedies (with Professor Douglas Laycock). Wolters Kluwer (2019). Concise Edition available; Also teacher’s manual and annual supplements.
• The Justice of Contradictions: Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption. Yale University Press (2018).
• Remedies—Examples and Explanations. 4th ed. Wolters Kluwer (2017). Prior editions: 3rd, 2013; 2nd, 2010; 1st, 2007 (Aspen).
• Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court and the Distortion of American Elections. Yale University Press (2016).
• The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown. Yale University Press (2012).
• Leaving the Empty Vessel of “Republicanism” Unfilled: An Argument for the Continued Nonjusticiability of Guarantee Clause Cases, in The Political Question Doctrine and the Supreme Court Of The United States (edited by Nada Mourtada-Sabbah and Bruce E. Cain). Lexington Books (2007).
• First Amendment Limits on Regulating Judicial Campaigns, in Running For Judge (edited by Matthew Streb). NYU Press
• Congressional Power to Renew the Preclearance Provisions, in The Future of the Voting Rights Act (edited by David Epstein, Richard H. Pildes, Rodolfo O. de la Garza & Sharyn O’Halloran). Russell Sage (2006).
• The California Recall Punch Card Litigation: Why Bush v. Gore Does Not “Suck, in Clicker Politics: Essays On The California Recall (edited by Shaun Bowler & Bruce E. Cain). Pearson Prentice Hall (2006).
• The Uses, Normative Implications, and Unintended Consequences Of Voting Reform Research, in Post-Bush v. Gore Equal Protection Challenges, in Rethinking The Vote (edited by Ann Crigler, Marion Just, and Edward McCaffery). Oxford University Press (2004).
• The Supreme Court And Election Law: Judging Equality From Baker V. Carr To Bush V. Gore. NYU University Press (2003).
• Encyclopedia Of The American Constitution (edited by Leonard w. Levy, Kenneth l. Karst, Adam Winkler). 2nd ed. Macmillan Reference USA
• Rescue, in The New Palgrave Dictionary Of Economics And The Law (edited by Peter Newman). Palgrave Macmillan (1998).
• Identifying and Minimizing the Risk of Election Subversion and Stolen Elections in the Contemporary United States, 135 Harvard Law Review Forum (2022). Full Text
• Optimism and Despair about a 2020 “Election Meltdown” and Beyond, 100 Boston University Law Review Online 298 (2020). Full Text
• Direct Democracy Denied: The Right to Initiative During a Pandemic, University Of Chicago Law Review Online (2020). Full Text
• Three Pathologies of American Voting Rights Illuminated by the COVID-19 Pandemic, and How to Treat and Cure Them, 19 Election Law Journal 263 (2020). Full Text
• Thin and Thick Conceptions of the Nineteenth Amendment and Congress’s Power to Enforce It (with Leah Litman), 108 Georgetown Law Journal 27 (2020). Full Text
• The Supreme Court’s Pro-Partisanship Turn, 109 Georgetown Law Journal Online 50 (2020). Full Text
• Deep Fakes, Bots, and Siloed Justices: American Election Law in a Post-Truth World, 64 St. Louis University Law Review 535 (2020).
• , in Legislation, Statutory Interpretation, and Election Law—Examples And Explanations, 2nd ed. (Wolters Kluwer, 2020). Prior edition: 1st, 2014.
• QV or Not QV? That is the Question; Some Skepticism About Radical Egalitarian Voting Markets, 87 University Of Chicago Law Review Online 67 (2019).
• Polarization and the Judiciary, 22 Annual Review of Political Science 261 (2019).
• ‘Civil Right No. 1:’ Dr. King’s Unfinished Voting Rights Revolution, 49 University of Memphis Law Review 137 (2018). Full Text
• Cheap Speech and What It Has Done (to American Democracy), 16 First Amendment Law Review 200 (2018). Full Text
• The 2016 U.S. Voting Wars: From Bad to Worse, 26 William And Mary Bill Of Rights Journal 529 (2018). Full Text
• Race or Party, Race as Party, or Party All the Time: Three Uneasy Approaches to Conjoined Polarization in Redistricting and Voting Cases, 59 William And Mary Law Review 1837 (2018). Full Text
• Resurrection: Cooper v. Harris and the Transformation of Racial Gerrymandering into a Voting Rights Tool, 1 ACS Supreme Court Review 105 (2017). Full Text
• Softening Voter ID Laws Through Litigation: Is it Enough?, 2016 Wisconsin Law Review Forward 100 (2016). Full Text
• After Scalia: The Future of United States Election Law, America-Ho (Biannual journal of Japanese American Society for Legal Studies) (2016). (In Japanese) Full Text
• Election Law’s Path in the Roberts Court’s First Decade: A Sharp Right Turn But with Speed Bumps and Surprising Twists, 68 Stanford Law Review 1597 (2016). Full Text
• Reining in the Purcell Principle, 43 Florida State University Law Review 427 (2016). Full Text
• Campaign Finance Law, the State of Nature, and the “Nirvana Fallacy”, Library of Law and Liberty (June 7, 2016).
• Celebrity Justice: Supreme Court Edition, 19 Green Bag 2D 157 (2016).
• Racial Gerrymandering’s Questionable Revival, 67 Alabama Law Review 365 (2015). Full Text
• Democracy for Grownups, New Rambler (November 2015).
• Why Isn’t Congress More Corrupt? A Preliminary Inquiry, 84 Fordham Law Review 429 (2015). Full Text
• Response: Conscious Congressional Overriding of the Supreme Court, Gridlock, and Partisan Politics (with Jim Buatti), 93 Texas Law Review See Also 263 (2015). Full Text
• When is Uniformity of People, Not Counties, Appropriate in Election Administration? The Cases of Early and Sunday Voting, 2015 University Of Chicago Legal Forum 193 (2015). Full Text
• Response: “Electoral Integrity,” “Dependence Corruption,” and What’s New Under the Sun, 89 New York University Law Review Online 87 (2014). Full Text
• Super PAC Contributions, Corruption, and the Proxy War over Coordination, 9 Duke Journal Of Constitutional Law & Public Policy 1 (2014). Full Text
• Race or Party? How Courts Should Think About Republican Efforts to Make it Harder to Vote in North Carolina and Elsewhere, 127 Harvard Law Review Forum 58 (2014). Full Text
• Shelby County and the Illusion of Minimalism, 22 William And Mary Bill of Rights Journal 713 (2014). Full Text
• Three Wrong Progressive Approaches (and One Right One) to Campaign Finance Reform, 8 Harvard Law & Policy Review (2014). Full Text
• Keynote Address of Prof. Richard L. Hasen Given to the Voting Wars Symposium, March 23, 2013, 28 Journal of Law and Politics 417 (2013). Full Text
• Political Dysfunction and Constitutional Change, 61 Drake Law Review 989 (2013). Full Text
• Is “Dependence Corruption” Distinct from a Political Equality Argument for Campaign Finance Reform? A Reply to Professor Lessig, 12 Election Law Journal 315 (2013).
• The 2012 Voting Wars, Judicial Backstops, and the Resurrection of Bush v. Gore, 81 George Washington Law Review 1865 (2013). Full Text
• A Constitutional Right to Lie in Campaigns and Elections?, 74 Montana Law Review 53 (2013). Full Text
• End of the Dialogue? Political Polarization, the Supreme Court, and Congress, 86 Southern California Law Review 205 (2013). Full Text
• Fixing Washington, 126 Harvard Law Review 550 (2012). Full Text
• What to Expect When You’re Electing: Federal Courts and the Political Thicket in 2012, Federal Lawyer (June 2012). Full Text
• Chill Out: A Qualified Defense of Campaign Finance Disclosure Laws in the Internet Age, 27 Journal Of Law And Politics 557 (2012). Full Text
• Anticipatory Overrulings, Invitations, Time Bombs, and Inadvertence: How Supreme Court Justices Move the Law, 61 Emory Law Journal 779 (2012). Full Text
• Lobbying, Rent Seeking, and the Constitution, 64 Stanford Law Review 191 (2012). Full Text
• Teaching Bush v. Gore as History, St. Louis University Law Review 665 (2012). Full Text
• The Supreme Court’s Shrinking Election Law Docket: A Legacy of Bush v. Gore or Fear of the Roberts Court?, 10 Election Law Journal 325 (2011). Full Text
• The Nine Lives of Buckley v. Valeo, in First Amendment Stories, (edited by Richard Garnett and Andrew Koppelman, Foundation Press, 2011). Reprinted in revised form in Election Law Stories, edited by Joshua Douglas and Eugene Mazo (2016). Full Text
• The Transformation of the Campaign Financing Regime for U.S. Presidential Elections, in The Funding of Political Parties, (edited by Keith Ewing, Jacob Rowbottom, and Joo-Cheong Tham, Routledge, 2011). Full Text
• Citizens United and the Orphaned Antidistortion Rationale, 27 Georgia State Law Review 989 (2011). Full Text
• Citizens United and the Illusion of Coherence, 109 Michigan Law Review 581 (2011). Full Text
• Judges as Political Regulators: Evidence and Options for Institutional Change, in Race, Reform, and Regulatory Institutions: Recurring Puzzles in American Democracy, (edited by Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Heather K. Gerken, and Michael S. Kang, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011).
• Aggressive Enforcement of the Single Subject Rule (with John Matsusaka), 9 Election Law Journal 399 (2010). Full Text
• The Benefits of the Democracy Canon and the Virtues of Simplicity: A Reply to Professor Elmendorf, 95 Cornell Law Review 1173 (2010).
• Election Administration Reform and the New Institutionalism, 98 California Law Review 1075 (2010). Full Text
• Constitutional Avoidance and Anti-Avoidance at the Roberts Court, 2009 Supreme Court Review 181 (2010). Full Text
• You Don’t Have to Be a Structuralist to Hate the Supreme Court’s Dignitary Harm Election Law Cases, 64 Univ. of Miami Law Review 465 (2010).
• The Democracy Canon, 62 Stanford Law Review 69 (2010). Full Text
• Assessing California’s Hybrid Democracy, 97 California Law Review 1501 (2009). Full Text
• Bush v. Gore and the Lawlessness Principle: A Comment on Professor Amar, 61 Florida Law Review 979 (2009). Full Text
• Introduction: Developments in Election Law, 42 Loyola L.A. Law Review 565 (2009). Full Text
• The Changing Nature of Campaign Financing for Presidential Primary Candidates, in Evolution and Revolution in the Nominations Process, (edited by Jack Citrin and David Karol, Rowman & Littlefield, 2009).
• Book Review, 124 Political Science Quarterly 213 (2009). Reviewing Judging Democracy, by Christopher P. Manfredi and Mark Rush (2008).
• Regulation of Campaign Finance, in Global Perspectives on Constitutional Law, (edited by Vikram Amar and Mark Tushnet, Oxford Univ. Press, 2009).
• When “Legislature” May Mean More than “Legislature”: Initiated Electoral College Reform and the Ghost of Bush v. Gore , 35 Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 599 (2008). Full Text
• “Too Plain for Argument?” The Uncertain Congressional Power to Require Parties to Choose Presidential Nominees Through Direct and Equal Primaries, 102 Northwestern University Law Review 2009 (2008). Full Text
• Beyond Incoherence: The Roberts Court’s Deregulatory Turn in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, 92 Minnesota Law Review 1064 (2008). Full Text
• Political Equality, the Internet, and Campaign Finance Regulation, 6 (1) The Forum 7 (2008). Full Text
• Justice Souter: Campaign Finance Law’s Emerging Egalitarian, 1 Albany Government Law Review 169 (2008). Full Text
• The Untimely Death of Bush v. Gore, 60 Stanford Law Review 1 (2007). Full Text
• The Newer Incoherence: Competition, Social Science, and Balancing in Campaign Finance Law After Randall v. Sorrell, 68 Ohio State Law Journal 849 (2007). Full Text
• Bad Legislative Intent, 2006 Wisconsin Law Review 843 (2006). Full Text
• How Much is Enough? The “Ballot Order Effect” and the Use of Social Science Evidence in Election Law Disputes (R. Michael Alvarez and Betsy Sinclair), 5 Election Law Journal 40 (2006). Full Text
• No Exit? The Roberts Court and the Future of Election Law, 57 South Carolina Law Review 669 (2006). Full Text
• The Uncertain Congressional Power to Ban State Felon Disenfranchisement Laws, 49 Howard Law Journal 767 (2006). Full Text
• Lessons from the Clash Between Campaign Finance Laws and the Blogosphere, 11 Nexus Law Journal 23 (2006). Full Text
• Beyond the Margin of Litigation: Reforming U.S. Election Administration to Avoid Electoral Meltdown, 62 Washington And Lee Law Review 937 (2005). Full Text
• Rethinking the Unconstitutionality of Contribution and Expenditure Limits in Ballot Measure Campaigns, 78 (4) Southern California Law Review 885 (2005). Full Text
• The Supreme Court and Election Law: A Reply to Three Commentators, 31 Journal Of Legislation 1 (2005). Full Text
• Congressional Power to Renew the Preclearance Provisions of the Voting Rights Act after Tennessee v. Lane, 66 Ohio State Law Journal 177 (2005). Full Text
• Buckley is Dead, Long Live Buckley: The New Campaign Finance Incoherence of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, 152 University Of Pennsylvania Law Review 31 (2004). Full Text
• Looking for Standards (in All the Wrong Places): Partisan Gerrymandering Cases after Vieth, 3 Election Law Journal 626 (2004). Full Text
• The Surprisingly Easy Case for Disclosure of Contributions and Expenditures Funding Sham Issue Advocacy, 3 Election Law Journal 251 (2004). Full Text
• A Critical Guide to Bush v. Gore Scholarship, 7 Annual Review Of Political Science 297 (2004). Full Text
• Comments on Baker, Clark, and Direct Democracy, 13 Journal Of Contemporary Legal Issues 563 (2004). Full Text
• The Untold Drafting History of Buckley v. Valeo, 2 Election Law Journal 241 (2003). Full Text
• Vouchers and Buckley: The Need for “Regime Change, 37 University Of Richmond Law Review 1049 (2003). Full Text
• The Constitutionality of a Soft Money Ban after Colorado Republican II, 1 Election Law Journal 195 (2002). Full Text
• The Benefits of “Judicially Unmanageable” Standards in Election Law Cases under the Equal Protection Clause, 80 North Carolina Law Review 1469 (2002). Full Text
• A “Tincture of Justice”: Judge Posner’s Failed Rehabilitation of Bush v. Gore, 80 Texas Law Review 137 (2001). Full Text
• Bush v. Gore and the Future of Equal Protection Law in Elections, 29 Florida State University Law Review 377 (2001). Full Text
• Measuring Overbreadth: Using Empirical Evidence to Determine the Constitutionality of Campaign Finance Laws Targeting Sham Issue Advocacy, 85 Minnesota Law Review 1773 (2001). Full Text
• Introduction, Internet Voting and Democracy Symposium, 34 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 979 (2001). Full Text
• Do the Parties or the People Own the Electoral Process?, 149 University Of Pennsylvania Law Review 815 (2001). Full Text
• Shrink Missouri, Campaign Finance, and “The Thing That Wouldn’t Leave”, 17 Constitutional Commentary 483 (2000). Full Text
• The Surprisingly Complex Case for Disclosure of Contributions and Expenditures Funding Sham Issue Advocacy, 48 UCLA Law Review 265 (2000). Full Text
• Vote Buying, 88 California Law Review 1323 (2000). Full Text
• Parties Take the Initiative (and Vice Versa), 100 Columbia Law Review 731 (2000). Full Text
• Mancur Olson Meets the Beltway, 3 Green Bag 2D 333 (2000).
• Pluralism with a Corporate Face: A Comment on Issacharoff and Ortiz, 85 Virginia Law Review 1671 (1999). Full Text
• Campaign Finance Laws and the Rupert Murdoch Problem, 77 Texas Law Review 1627 (1999). Full Text
• Introduction: Money, Politics, and Equality (E. Joshua Rosenkranz), 77 Texas Law Review 1603 (1999). Full Text
• Introduction: Election Law At Puberty: Optimism and Words of Caution, 32 Loyola Of Los Angeles Law Review 1095 (1999). Full Text
• The “Political Market” Metaphor and Election Law, 50 Stanford Law Review 719 (1998).
• Judging the Judges of Initiatives: A Comment on Holman & Stern, 31 Loyola Of Los Angeles Law Review 1267.
• Entrenching the Duopoly: Why the Supreme Court Should Not Allow the States to Protect the Democrats and Republicans from Political Competition, 1997 Supreme Court Review 331 (1998).
• The Surprisingly Complex Case Against Theft (Richard McAdams), 17 International Review Of Law & Economics 367 (1997). Full Text
• “High Court Wrongly Elected:” A Public Choice Model of Judging and Its Implications for the Voting Rights Act, 75 North Carolina Law Review 1305 (1997).
• Voting Without Law?, 144 University Of Pennsylvania Law Review 2135 (1996). Full Text
• Book Review – Election Law, Cases and Materials, 46 Journal of Legal Education 140 (1996).
• Clipping Coupons for Democracy: An Egalitarian/Public Choice Defense of Campaign Finance Vouchers, 84 California Law Review 1 (1996). Full Text
• The Efficient Duty to Rescue, 15 International Review Of Law & Economics 141 (1995).
• An Enriched Economic Model of Political Patronage and Campaign Contributions: Reformulating Supreme Court Jurisprudence, 14 Cardozo Law Review 1311 (1993).
• Comment, Efficiency Under Informational Asymmetry: The Effect of Framing on Legal Rules, 38 UCLA Law Review 391.