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.
After Obergefell: The Perilous Path Ahead
Edward Whelan
How Americans respond in the coming months and years to the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling will reveal much about who we think we are — and about what America will become.
Articles
National Review - July 20, 2015 issue / July 9, 2015
The Use and Abuse of Originalism
Edward Whelan
Some libertarians sometimes invite the suspicion that their commitment to originalism is opportunistic—that, for them, originalism is something to be invoked and to be twisted, this way and that, to constitutionalize their policy preferences.
Articles
Library of Law and Liberty / June 11, 2015
Reclaiming Citizenship
Edward Whelan
We live in a legal culture besotted by the myth of judicial supremacy. A new book on the Constitution dispels with admirable clarity this and other myths.
Articles
National Review - June 1, 2015 issue / May 20, 2015
A Bad Proposal
Edward Whelan
The tools of modern political science are not capable of generating meaningful insights into whether in-group bias affects judicial decision-making.
Articles
Buffalo Law Review - Volume 63, Issue 2 (April 2015) / May 18, 2015
Bench Memos Turns Ten
Edward Whelan
EPPC’s President talks about the Bench Memos blog’s impact on judicial nominations and the wide array of readers who depend on Bench Memos for insightful analysis.
Articles
National Review Online / May 12, 2015
Injudicious Ginsburg
Edward Whelan
Justice Ginsburg’s gratuitous comments about the marriage cases pending before the Supreme Court are unethical and should require her recusal.
Articles
National Review Online / February 19, 2015
Rand Paul Is Wrong: Judicial Restraint Is Right
Edward Whelan
Senator Rand Paul makes a bad case in support of “judicial activism.”
Articles
National Review Online / January 16, 2015
A Curious Panel Selection Procedure
Edward Whelan
The Ninth Circuit — the federal appellate court long notorious for its lawlessness — should conduct a thorough investigation into whether its process of assigning judges to cases has been abused for ideological purposes.
Articles
San Francisco Daily Journal / December 15, 2014
What Will the GOP’s Senate Takeover Mean for Judicial Nominations?
Edward Whelan
Senate Republicans should give President Obama’s judicial nominees the same treatment that Senate Democrats offered Republican nominees in the recent past.
Articles
The National Law Journal / November 17, 2014
Don’t Bring Back the Judicial Filibuster
Edward Whelan
Republican senators would engage in a profoundly foolish and destructive diversion if they undertook to reinstate the filibuster for lower-court nominees.
Articles
National Review Online / November 5, 2014
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In Defense of <i>Dobbs</i> as an Originalist Triumph
Published on 16 May, 2024
This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—May 16
Published on 16 May, 2024
Divided Second Circuit Denies En Banc Review in PLO Terrorism Cases
Published on 15 May, 2024
This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—May 15
Published on 15 May, 2024