Ed Whelan

Ed Whelan is the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Edward Whelan is the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He 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, he has been a leading commentator on nominations to the Supreme Court and the lower courts and on issues of constitutional law. He 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.

In 2011, the National Law Journal named Mr. Whelan among its “Champions and Visionaries” in the practice of law in D.C. The National Law Journal praised Mr. Whelan for “pioneer[ing] the field of legal blogging” and for offering “commentary [that] infuses national debates over judicial nominees, Supreme Court ethics and appellate court decisions—so much so that, when a Senate Republican cites outside research into the record of an Obama nominee, it’s more likely than not that the handiwork is Whelan’s.”

Mr. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin 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.

The Latest

Law & the Courts

This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—January 17

By Ed Whelan 8:00 AM

2007—In a house editorial, the Los Angeles Times encourages Senate Democrats to display a “cooperative spirit” rather than “obstructionism”, and it specifically recommends that they confirm D.C. Circuit nominee Peter ...

Law & the Courts

This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—January 16

By Ed Whelan January 16, 2019

2002—It turns out that there are limits to the courts’ overreaching interpretations of the religious guarantees of the Establishment Clause—at least when the rights of religious conservatives are at stake. When ...

Law & the Courts

This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—January 14

By Ed Whelan January 14, 2019

1989—“Kreimer’s odor prevents staff member from completing copying task.” So reads the day’s entry in the logbook that the Morristown, New Jersey, public library has set up to chronicle the ...

Law & the Courts

This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—January 12

By Ed Whelan January 12, 2019

1971—Justices Douglas, Brennan and Marshall dissent from the Court’s ruling (in Wyman v. James) that a state may condition a person’s receipt of benefits under the Aid to Families with ...

Law & the Courts

Transforming the Florida Supreme Court

By Ed Whelan January 11, 2019

Despite the fact that Florida hasn’t elected a Democratic governor since 1994, a liberal majority continued to dominate the state supreme court through 2018. But that seems very likely to ...

Law & the Courts

This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—January 11

By Ed Whelan January 11, 2019

1954—President Eisenhower nominates former California governor Earl Warren to serve as Chief Justice. Warren is already serving as Chief Justice pursuant to a recess appointment by Eisenhower in October 1953. ...

Law & the Courts

This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—January 10

By Ed Whelan January 10, 2019

2006—Less than eight years out of law school, Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu submits his written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Samuel ...

Law & the Courts

More on Hirono’s and Harris’s Anti-Catholic Bigotry

By Ed Whelan January 9, 2019

Following up on Carrie Severino’s two posts, I’m pleased to see that there has been considerable objection to the effort by Senator Mazie Hirono and Senator Kamala Harris to tar ...

Law & the Courts

This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—January 9

By Ed Whelan January 9, 2019

1979—In Colautti v. Franklin, the Supreme Court rules unconstitutional, by a vote of 6 to 3, a Pennsylvania statute that requires that if an abortionist determines that a human fetus ...

Law & the Courts

This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—January 8

By Ed Whelan January 8, 2019

2010—Solicitor General Elena Kagan personally assigns her deputy Neal Katyal to be part of “a group to get thinking about how to defend against inevitable challenges to the health care proposals that ...