EPPC - Edward Whelan RSS Feed

The Show Trial on Same-Sex Marriage

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EST

In an ongoing series of posts on National Review Online's Bench Memos blog on the anti-Proposition 8 trial in California, EPPC President Ed Whelan is exposing the shenanigans orchestrated by the presiding judge. See also Mr. Whelan's introductory essay, "Staging a Show Trial on Same-Sex Marriage."

Staging a Show Trial on Same-Sex Marriage

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EST

In his eagerness to stack the deck against California's Proposition 8 and its defenders, Judge Vaughn Walker has already resorted to procedural shenanigans and outright illegality.

Lessons Learned

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 00:00:00 EST

In his contribution to a symposium on lessons learned from 2009, EPPC President Ed Whelan outlines how the Sotomayor confirmation process illustrates the political triumph of judicial conservatism.

The Record of Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EST

In a series of posts on National Review Online's Bench Memos blog, EPPC President Ed Whelan is addressing the record of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

A Higher Bar for Sotomayor

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 EST

Republican senators who supported Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Second Circuit in 1998 will have ample basis to oppose her Supreme Court nomination.

Replacing Justice Souter

Tue, 05 May 2009 00:00:00 EST

In a Washington Post symposium, EPPC President Ed Whelan recommends that President Obama revive "the once-dominant species of liberal proponents of judicial restraint."

Harold Koh’s Transnationalism

Tue, 05 May 2009 00:00:00 EST

In a series of posts on National Review Online's Bench Memos blog that earned prominent attention, EPPC President Ed Whelan exposed the radical transnationalist views of controversial State Department legal adviser nominee Harold Koh.

The Souter Mistake

Mon, 04 May 2009 00:00:00 EST

EPPC President Ed Whelan reflects on Justice Souter's legacy in a contribution to a New York Times symposium: "Justice Souter will, in the end, be remembered most as President George H.W. Bush’s worst mistake — a mistake, of course, that some celebrate and others (myself included) lament."

Harold Koh’s Transnationalism

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EST

Harold Koh, President Obama’s nominee to be the State Department’s top lawyer, holds radical transnationalist views that are hostile to fundamental American principles of representative government. As State Department legal adviser, Koh would be particularly well positioned to implement his transnationalist agenda.

Look Who’s Politicizing Justice Now

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EST

Less than two months into his tenure as attorney general, Eric Holder has abused the Office of Legal Counsel for the partisan political purpose of overriding its determination that the so-called D.C. voting rights bill is unconstitutional.

Original Meaning and Judicial Restraint

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:00:00 EST

In a University Bookman interview, EPPC President Ed Whelan discusses the Supreme Court, competing judicial philosophies, Roe v. Wade, media coverage of the Supreme Court, his favorite think tank, and more.

Supreme Success

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

While President Bush earns the highest marks for Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, his project of restoring the Supreme Court to its proper role in a constitutional republic remains incomplete. If and when a future president is ready to help build a real Roberts Court, that president will have plenty of strong Bush appointees to the lower courts to choose from.

Obama and the Supreme Court

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:00:00 EST

The Supreme Court urgently needs to be transformed into an institution that practices judicial restraint. If Barack Obama is elected president, he will drive the Court further in the wrong direction.

Judicial Activism Run Amok

Fri, 16 May 2008 00:00:00 EST

On May 15, the California supreme court, by a vote of 4 to 3, invented a right to same-sex marriage under the state constitution. That same day, EPPC President Ed Whelan offered his critical comments on the court’s ruling in a series of posts on National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog.

The Mystery of the Missing Lawsuits

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST

One year after the Supreme Court's ruling on the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003, the pro-abortion industry has not filed a single lawsuit challenging the Act's application to circumstances that supposedly threaten a mother's health. Why not? The question is worth pondering.

How Judge Posner Thinks Judges Should Think

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST

In his new book, How Judges Think, Seventh Circuit judge Richard A. Posner states that he aims to offer a "cogent, unified, realistic, and appropriately eclectic account of how judges actually arrive at their decisions in nonroutine cases." But his book, in the end, offers much less insight about how judges actually think than about how Judge Posner thinks judges should think, and its case for Posnerian pragmatism is unpersuasive.

Obama’s Constitution

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST

An examination of Barack Obama's record and rhetoric on judicial nominations discloses that beneath the congeniality and charisma lies a leftist partisan who will readily resort to sly deceptions to advance his agenda of liberal judicial activism. Given the likelihood of so many changes in the membership of the Supreme Court over the next eight years, it is particularly important that voters this November recognize the real Obama.

On McCain and Supreme Court Appointments

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST

In his contribution to NRO's post-Florida symposium on what John McCain needs to do to rally conservatives if he is the Republican nominee, EPPC President Ed Whelan addresses the matter of Supreme Court appointments.

Far From Sober

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST

Slate's Emily Bazelon and Dahlia Lithwick offer a hilariously defective defense of Linda Greenhouse's conflict of interest. Most remarkably, they call on the New York Times to stop providing (horrors!) "sober explications" of complaints about her reporting.

Ed Whelan’s Response to New York Times’s Public Editor

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST

When EPPC President Ed Whelan informed the New York Times's public editor (or "readers' representative"), Clark Hoyt, of reporter Linda Greenhouse's conflict of interest, Hoyt went out of his way to level a cheap attack on Whelan in his Sunday column -- even as he validated the heart of Whelan's complaint. It's quite a revealing performance by Hoyt. Here, in four parts, is Whelan's response.