Prof. Justin Levitt launches All About Redistricting website

Associate Professor Justin Levitt, a national expert on redistricting, has launched All About Redistricting, an online guide to the process of drawing electoral district lines. The site is at redistricting.lls.edu.

All About Redistricting explains state-by-state the intricacies of the process with easy-to-digest breakdowns of state rules, summaries of procedures and links to relevant state websites. A series of interactive maps (example at right) guide users through the process. Levitt, a prolific scholar whose works include A Citizens Guide to Redistricting, includes his analyses of everything from current litigation to reform initiatives. Redistricting is underway nationwide in a process that will continue through 2012.

"This website is designed to be a one-stop easy-reference site for all sorts of redistricting information," said Levitt. "For each state's congressional and state legislative districts, we track the current status, describe who draws the lines and the rules for when and how the lines are drawn, and follow redistricting litigation from start to finish. Maps and charts quickly put the states in national context. And the site gathers other resources explaining how the process works now and how it might work in the future, all together in one place."

Levitt has served in various capacities for several presidential campaigns, including as the National Voter Protection Counsel in 2008. He coordinated the amicus response in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, a Supreme Court challenge to a state's voter ID requirements. Prior to joining the Loyola faculty, he was counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, Levitt also teaches Constitutional Law at Loyola Law School.