Daniel Hays Lowenstein (born May 10, 1943) [1] is an emeritus professor at UCLA Law School and an expert in election law. He was appointed by California governor Jerry Brown as the first chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission in 1974 and was Jerry Brown's Chief Deputy Secretary of State. He was elected to the National Governing Board of Common Cause in 1979 and has been a board member and a vice president of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights. He is also the co-author of the groundbreaking California Political Reform Act of 1974.
Lowenstein is considered a pioneer in election law teaching and research, [2] [3] and was the founding editor of the Election Law Journal. His work has been widely studied and analyzed. [3] [4]
In addition to his election law scholarship, Lowenstein has published commentary on literary works including Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" and Dickens' "Bleak House." He served for nine years as the chairman of the board of the Interact Theatre Company and is currently on the board of the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, both in Los Angeles. Lowenstein served as a doctoral dissertation supervisor of Jurij Toplak at University of Maribor.
Since July 1, 2009, Lowenstein has been serving as the first director of UCLA's Center for the Liberal Arts and Free Institutions (CLAFI), which is intended to support teaching, research, and public discussion of the great works and achievements of western civilization. [5]
Lowenstein graduated from Yale University in 1964 and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1967. [6]
He is married to Sharon Yagi, who is originally from Watsonville, California. They have two sons, Aaron Lowenstein and Nathan Lowenstein who are both attorneys working in Los Angeles. Aaron is an attorney at Warner Brothers Television and Nathan is a founding partner of Lowenstein & Weatherwax LLP. [7] Sharon has two siblings, Gayle Yagi Gotelli and Randy Yagi.
Joseph Graham "Gray" Davis Jr. is an American attorney and former politician who served as the 37th governor of California from 1999 until he was recalled and removed from office in 2003. He is the second state governor in U.S. history to have been recalled, after Lynn Frazier.
Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of State of California in 1970; Brown later served as Mayor of Oakland from 1999 to 2007 and Attorney General of California from 2007 to 2011. He was both the oldest and sixth-youngest governor of California due to the 28-year gap between his second and third terms. Upon completing his fourth term in office, Brown became the fourth longest-serving governor in U.S. history, serving 16 years and 5 days in office.
Courken George Deukmejian Jr. was an American politician who served as the 35th governor of California from 1983 to 1991. A member of the Republican Party, he was the state's first governor of Armenian descent.
Charles Jeremy Lewis was an American politician who was a U.S. representative, last serving California's 41st congressional district. He was first elected to Congress in 1978, and previously represented the 40th, 35th, and 37th districts. A Republican, he was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, serving in that role during the 109th Congress. In January 2012 he announced that he was not running for re-election and would end his congressional career in January 2013.
Election law is a branch of public law that relates to the democratic processes, election of representatives and office holders, and referendums, through the regulation of the electoral system, voting rights, ballot access, election management bodies, election campaign, the division of the territory into electoral zones, the procedures for the registration of voters and candidacies, its financing and propaganda, voting, counting of votes, scrutiny, electoral disputes, electoral observation and all contentious matters derived from them. It is a discipline falling at the juncture of constitutional law and political science, and involves "the politics of law and the law of politics".
John Radford Froines was an American chemist and anti-war activist, noted as a member of the Chicago Seven, a group charged with involvement with the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Froines, who held a Ph.D. in chemistry from Yale, was charged with interstate travel for purposes of inciting a riot and with making incendiary devices, but was acquitted. He later served as the Director of Toxic Substances at the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration and then director of UCLA’s Occupational Health Center. He also served as chair of the California Scientific Review Panel on Toxic Air Contaminants for nearly 30 years before resigning in 2013 amid controversy and claims of conflict of interest.
Gerald L. Parsky is an American financier, philanthropist, and public servant. He serves as chairman of Aurora Capital Group, a Los Angeles–based private investment firm managing over $2.0 billion of private equity capital.
Stanley Phillip Gold is the former president and CEO of Shamrock Holdings, Roy E. Disney's private investment company, from 1985 to 2013, and is currently serving as chairman of its board of directors. He was on the Walt Disney Company board, in 1984 and during 1987–2003. He and Roy resigned to publicly campaign for the ousting of then-CEO and chairman Michael Eisner. He had also helped to both oust former CEO Ron W. Miller, and hire Eisner, in 1984. He is a past chairman of the USC board of trustees, and of the University of Southern California Law School, and has been a significant political contributor.
Cruz Reynoso was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist.
Jack Stephen Weiss is an American entrepreneur and former politician. He is co-founder of BlueLine Grid alongside William Bratton and David Riker and is a former member of the Los Angeles City Council representing the 5th district from 2001 to 2009. He previously served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California from 1994 to 2000. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Nathan Blaine Fletcher is an American politician who most recently served on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors for the 4th District since 2019, serving as chair from 2021 to 2023. On March 26, 2023, he announced he would seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and alcoholism. On March 29, 2023, news broke of a lawsuit by an employee of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System alleging that Fletcher had sexually assaulted her and that she was then fired after resisting his advances, and that evening, he announced his resignation from the Board of Supervisors, effective at the end of his medical leave.
John A. Pérez is an American union organizer and politician. He has been a Regent of the University of California since November 17, 2014, previously serving as the 68th Speaker of the California State Assembly from March 1, 2010, to May 12, 2014. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented the 46th district (2008–2012) and 53rd district (2012–2014) in the California State Assembly.
Morgan Chu, is an American intellectual property attorney.
Keith Fink is an American attorney, author, and academic. He represented a business in a contract dispute with Ellen DeGeneres dubbed by the media as "Iggygate".
Jeffrey Frederick Gorell, a Republican politician from California, is currently a member of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, having been elected to the County Board, 2nd District, in 2022. In 2010, Gorell was elected to the State Legislature to serve as Assembly Member for the 37th Assembly District in California, representing most of Ventura County. After the decennial redistricting in 2011, Gorell was re-elected to represent the new 44th Assembly District and served as Vice-Chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee. In 2014, Gorell was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in California's 26th congressional district. Gorell is also the former Deputy Mayor of the City of Los Angeles for Homeland Security and Public Safety. Gorell, a Navy Reserve officer, is notable for being the first California legislator called to active duty since World War II. During his deployment, fourteen bills were sponsored in his name.
Proposition 27 was an unsuccessful ballot proposition on the November 2, 2010 ballot in California, placed there by the initiative process. If approved, this measure would have repealed California Proposition 11 (2008), which authorized the creation of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw the electoral boundaries for State Assembly and State Senate districts. It would also have modified the provision in California law that says that proposed congressional districts can not be subjected to a veto referendum.
Los Angeles Leadership Academy is a free charter school system in Los Angeles, California. The school has been noted with a alumni that has nearly a 100 percent acceptance to college. Students that graduate from Los Angeles Leadership Academy have been admitted to and attended Harvard, Stanford, North Western, Brown, Cal Poly, Penn State, UC Berkeley, and Penn State just to name a few. The schools in the system includes Los Angeles Leadership Academy Primary School, Los Angeles Leadership Academy Middle School, and Los Angeles Leadership Academy High School. The school is located in Lincoln Heights.
Ann E. Carlson is an American attorney and legal scholar who has served as the acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since September 2022. Before joining the Biden administration, Carlson was the Shirley Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law at the UCLA School of Law, where she also served as faculty co-director of the Emmett Center on Climate Change and the Environment. She is an expert on U.S. environmental law and policy with a particular focus on climate change and environmental federalism. Biden administration withdrew her from nomination in May 2023.
Younes Nazarian was a Jewish Iranian-American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. An early investor in Qualcomm, he was the chairman of Nazarian Enterprises. He was also a major donor to charitable causes in California and Israel.
Charles Paul Rettig is an American attorney who served as the United States Commissioner of Internal Revenue, the head of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS). On September 12, 2018, the United States Senate confirmed Rettig's nomination to be Commissioner for the term expiring November 12, 2022. Rettig was sworn in on October 1, 2018.