Edward Whelan
Distinguished Senior Fellow and Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies
Edward Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and holds EPPC’s Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies. He is the longest-serving President in EPPC’s history, having held that position from March 2004 through January 2021.
Edward Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and holds EPPC’s Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies. He is the longest-serving President in EPPC’s history, having held that position from March 2004 through January 2021.
Mr. Whelan directs EPPC’s program on The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture. His areas of expertise include constitutional law and the judicial confirmation process.
As a contributor to National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog, Mr. Whelan has been a leading commentator on nominations to the Supreme Court and the lower courts and on issues of constitutional law. In his Confirmation Tales newsletter, he draws lessons from his three decades of experience in judicial-confirmation battles.
Mr. Whelan has written essays and op-eds for leading newspapers—including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post—opinion journals, and academic symposia and law reviews. The National Law Journal has named him among its “Champions and Visionaries” in the practice of law in D.C.
Mr. Whelan is co-editor of three volumes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s work: Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived (Crown Forum, 2017), a New York Times bestselling collection of speeches by Justice Scalia; On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (Crown Forum, 2019), a collection of Justice Scalia’s writings on faith and religion; and The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law (Crown Forum, 2020), a collection of Justice Scalia’s views on legal issues.
Mr. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Justice Scalia, has served in positions of responsibility in all three branches of the federal government. From just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until joining EPPC in 2004, Mr. Whelan was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions. Mr. Whelan previously served on Capitol Hill as General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In addition to clerking for Justice Scalia, he was a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In 1981 Mr. Whelan graduated with honors from Harvard College and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1985 from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Harvard Law Review.
For more on Mr. Whelan’s background, see this interview.
Senator Hawley’s Judicial Test on Roe v. Wade Won’t Work
Edward Whelan
Political realities can be confronted and transformed, but they cannot simply be imagined away. Unfortunately, Senator Hawley’s pro-life litmus test promises no more success in the future than it would have had in the past.
Articles
Public Discourse / August 24, 2020
Vile Smear of Justice Alito
Edward Whelan
In a rant on Vox, Ian Millhiser condemns Justice Alito as a “defender of white racial innocence.”
Articles
National Review Online / April 23, 2020
McConnell’s Supreme Court Tactics: Politics 101
Edward Whelan
When the president and the Senate majority are from the same party, look for the swift confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee.
Articles
National Review Online / January 2, 2020
The Presumption of Constitutionality
Edward Whelan
The principle that the courts must apply a statute unless the statute clearly conflicts with the Constitution has deep roots and inheres in the very foundation of the power of judicial review.
Articles
Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy - Volume 42 / March 12, 2019
The Judicial Divide Between Conservatives and Liberals
Edward Whelan
EPPC President Ed Whelan was interviewed by The Politic, an undergraduate journal at Yale, about right vs. left on the Supreme Court and more.
Articles
The (Yale) Politic / November 20, 2018
Trump Picks Brett Kavanaugh
Edward Whelan
Judge Kavanaugh, 53 years old, has compiled an outstanding record during his twelve years on the federal court of appeals in D.C. On what is commonly regarded as the second-most-important court in the country, he has confronted a vast array of consequential constitutional and statutory issues and has written strong, influential opinions.
Articles
National Review Online / July 9, 2018
Trump’s Stellar Judges
Edward Whelan
Donald Trump deserves thunderous acclaim from conservatives for his outstanding record of judicial appointments during his first year as president. But his conspicuous successes should not obscure the many obstacles on the long path to genuine transformation of the federal judiciary.
Articles
National Review - January 22, 2018 issue / January 5, 2018
Interview: Ed Whelan, An EPPC Eye On Judicial Confirmations
Edward Whelan
A wide-ranging interview with EPPC President Ed Whelan, in which he discusses the Supreme Court confirmation process, clerking for Justice Scalia, listening to Vin Scully, attending the inauguration of Richard Nixon, and what it was like to work in all three branches of the federal government.
Articles
Simple Justice: A Criminal Defense Blog / April 5, 2017
No Deal on Gorsuch Filibuster
Edward Whelan
The very fact that Senate Democrats have the votes to filibuster Neil Gorsuch shows that they will filibuster any plausible next nominee. So the “deal” that some are floating would simply confer on Democrats a preemptive veto over the next Supreme Court nomination.
Articles
National Review Online / April 4, 2017
A Supreme Successor to Justice Scalia
Edward Whelan
Rocky Mountain native Neil Gorsuch has an impressive judicial record as an originalist.
Articles
National Review Online / January 31, 2017
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