William Rehnquist
William Hubbs Rehnquist (
October 1,
1924 –
September 3,
2005) was an
American lawyer,
jurist, and a
political figure, who served as an
Associate Justice on the
Supreme Court of the United States and later as the
Chief Justice of the United States. A proponent of a
federalism that favored state power, his legacy includes the first limits on Congress's power under the
Commerce Clause of the
United States Constitution since the 1930s. He was the immediate predecessor of the current Chief Justice,
John Roberts, who once served Rehnquist as his
law clerk.
Rehnquist was born in
Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, as William Donald Rehnquist
[Greenhouse, Linda. Becoming Justice Blackmun. 235-236. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2005.] and grew up in the suburb of
Shorewood. His father, William Benjamin Rehnquist, was a paper salesman; his mother, Margery Peck Rehnquist, was a translator and homemaker. Rehnquist changed his middle name to Hubbs, his grandmother's maiden name, during his high school years.
After graduating from
Shorewood High School in 1942, Rehnquist attended
Kenyon College, in Gambier OH, for one quarter in the fall of 1942, before entering the
U.S. Army Air Forces. Rehnquist served in
World War II from March, 1943 to 1946. He was put into a pre-
meteorology program, and was assigned to
Denison University until February, 1944, when the program was shut down. He served three months at
Will Rogers Field in
Oklahoma City, three months in
Carlsbad, New Mexico, and then went to
Hondo, Texas for a few months. He was then chosen for another training program which began at
Chanute Field,
Illinois, and ended at
Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. The program was designed to teach the maintenance and repair of
weather instruments. In the summer of 1945 he went overseas, and served as a weather observer in
North Africa.
After the war ended, Rehnquist attended
Stanford University with assistance under the provisions of the
G.I. Bill. In 1948, he received a
bachelor's degree and a
master's degree in
political science. In 1950, he went to
Harvard University, where he received a master's degree in government. He returned later to the
Stanford Law School, where he graduated in the same class as
Sandra Day O'Connor, who would later serve alongside him on the Supreme Court. It has been said that Rehnquist graduated first in his class, probably based on the fact that Rehnquist was class valedictorian during graduation ceremonies, but Stanford's official position is that the law school did not rank students in 1952. [
1].
Rehnquist went to
Washington, D.C. to work as a
law clerk for Justice
Robert H. Jackson during the court's 1951–1952 terms. There, he wrote a
memorandum arguing against school
desegregation while the court was considering the landmark
Brown v. Board of Education case. Rehnquist later claimed that the memo was meant to reflect Jackson's views and not his own. Rehnquist's memo, entitled "A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases," defended the separate-but-equal doctrine embodied in the 1896 Supreme Court case of
Plessy v. Ferguson. Rehnquist concluded that
Plessy "was right and should be reaffirmed." When later questioned about the memos by the Senate Judiciary Committee in both 1971 and 1986, Rehnquist blamed his defense of segregation on Justice Jackson, testifying that his memo was meant to reflect the views of Justice Jackson. While it was confirmed that the views were indeed Jackson's, Rehnquist was not innocent. According to law professor Mark Tushnet, Justice Jackson's longtime legal secretary called Rehnquist's Senate testimony an attempt to "smear[] the reputation of a great justice." Rehnquist later admitted to defending
Plessy in arguments with fellow law clerks.
Rehnquist moved to
Phoenix, Arizona, where he was in private law practice from 1953 to 1969. During these years, he was active in the
Republican Party and served as a legal advisor to
Barry Goldwater's
1964 presidential campaign. Many years later, during the 1986
Senate hearings on his chief justice nomination, several people came forward to complain about what they viewed as Rehnquist's attempts to discourage minority voters in Arizona elections when Rehnquist served as a "poll watcher" in the early 1960s. Rehnquist denied the charges.
When
President Richard Nixon was elected in
1968, Rehnquist returned to work in Washington. He served as
Assistant Attorney General of the
Office of Legal Counsel, from 1969 to 1971. In this role, he served as the chief lawyer to
Attorney General John Mitchell. President Nixon mistakenly referred to him as "Renchburg" in several of the tapes of
Oval Office conversations revealed during the
Watergate investigations. Because he was well-placed in the
Justice Department, Rehnquist was mentioned for many years as a possibility for the source known as
Deep Throat during the
Watergate scandal.
Bob Woodward's May 31,
2005, disclosure that
W. Mark Felt was
Deep Throat brought these speculations to an end.
 |
Rehnquist portrait as an Associate Justice in 1976. |
Nixon nominated Rehnquist to replace
John Marshall Harlan II on the Supreme Court upon Harlan's retirement, and after being confirmed by the
Senate by a 68–26 vote on
December 10,
1971, Rehnquist took his seat as an Associate Justice on
January 7,
1972. There were two vacancies on the court at the time; Nixon nominated
Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr. to fill the other.
On the
Burger Court, Rehnquist promptly established himself as the most conservative of Nixon's appointees, taking a narrow view of the
Fourteenth Amendment and a broad view of state power. He voted against the expansion of school
desegregation plans and the establishment of legalized abortions, dissenting in the 1973 case
Roe v. Wade,
410 U.S. 113 (1973), and in favor of
school prayer,
capital punishment and
states' rights. Reluctant to compromise, Rehnquist was the most frequent sole-dissenter during the Burger years. He actively sought to promote his conservative agenda within the Court, especially in the area of
federalism, and voted most often alongside the also conservative
Chief Justice.
Rehnquist wrote the decision
Diamond v. Diehr, which punched a hole in the dike against software patents in the United States erected by Justice
Stevens in
Parker v. Flook; the dike collapsed within a few years and software patenting is now virtually unlimited. In
Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., pertaining to
video cassette recorders such as the Betamax system, Justice Stevens again wrote an opinion providing a broad
fair use doctrine while Rehnquist joined the dissent, which supported stronger copyrights. Years later, in
Eldred v. Ashcroft, Rehnquist was in the majority favoring the copyright holders, with Justice Stevens dissenting in favor of a narrower construction of copyright law.
When Chief Justice
Warren Burger retired in 1986, then-President Ronald Reagan nominated Rehnquist to fill the position. During confirmation hearings, Senator
Edward Kennedy challenged Rehnquist on his ownership of property that had a
restrictive covenant against sale to
Jews; such covenants are unenforceable under
Shelley v. Kraemer. Despite this and other controversies, the
Senate confirmed his appointment by a 65–33 vote, and he assumed the office on
September 26. Rehnquist's associate justice seat was filled by
Antonin Scalia.
After becoming Chief Justice, Rehnquist continued to lead the Court toward a broader view of state powers in the U.S. federal system. For example, he wrote for a 5-to-4 majority in
United States v. Lopez,
514 U.S. 549 (1995), striking down a federal law as exceeding congressional power under the
commerce clause. Rehnquist also led the way in establishing more governmental leniency towards state aid for
religion, writing for another 5-to-4 majority in
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris,
536 U.S. 639 (2002), approving a
school voucher program that aided church schools along with other private schools.
In 1999, Rehnquist became the second Chief Justice (after
Salmon P. Chase) to preside over a presidential
impeachment trial, during the proceedings against President
Bill Clinton. In 2000, Rehnquist wrote a concurring opinion in
Bush v. Gore, effectively ending the
presidential election controversy in Florida.
In his capacity as Chief Justice, Rehnquist administered the Oath of Office to Presidents Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush.
On
October 26,
2004, the Supreme Court announced that Rehnquist had recently been
diagnosed with
thyroid cancer. Because of his health problems, there were doubts as to whether he would be able to administer the oath of office to President
George W. Bush at his second inauguration on
January 20,
2005. However, Rehnquist did swear in Bush at the inaugural; he arrived using a cane, walked very slowly, and left immediately after the oath itself was administered.
After missing 44 oral arguments before the Court in late 2004 and early 2005, Rehnquist appeared on the bench again on
March 21. During his absence, however, he remained involved in the business of the Court, participating in many of the decisions and deliberations.
On
July 1, Rehnquist's colleague
Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement from her position of Associate Justice, after consulting with Rehnquist and learning that he intended to remain on the Court. Commenting on the frenzy of speculation over his retirement, Rehnquist joked with the press, "That's for me to know and you to find out."
Rehnquist died at his
Arlington, Virginia, home on
September 3,
2005, exactly four weeks short of his 81st birthday, after a long battle with
thyroid cancer. Rehnquist was the first member of the Supreme Court to die in office since Justice Robert H. Jackson in 1954, and the first Chief Justice to die in office since
Fred M. Vinson, in 1953.
On
September 6,
2005, eight of Rehnquist's former
law clerks, including
John Roberts, his eventual successor, served as his
pallbearers as his casket was placed on the same
catafalque that bore
Abraham Lincoln's casket as he
lay in state in 1865. [
2]
Rehnquist's body remained in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court until his funeral on
September 7,
2005, a
Lutheran service conducted at the
Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in
Washington, D.C. The presiding minister was George Evans, the former chief of Chaplains for the US Navy. He was
eulogized by President
George W. Bush and Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor, as well as by members of his family. [
3] His funeral was followed by a private burial service, in which he was interred next to his late wife, Nan, at
Arlington National Cemetery [
4].
The vacancy left by Rehnquist's death came just over two months after Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's
July 1,
2005, announcement that she would retire from the Court, leaving two vacancies to be filled by President George W. Bush.
On
September 5,
2005, President Bush withdrew the Associate Justice nomination of Judge
John Roberts of the
D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and instead nominated him to replace Rehnquist as Chief Justice. Roberts was confirmed by the
U.S. Senate and sworn in as the new Chief Justice on
September 29,
2005. Roberts had
clerked for Rehnquist in 1980-1981, and was a pallbearer at Rehnquist's funeral.
* Rehnquist's paternal grandparents immigrated separately (although they may have known one another before) from
Sweden in 1880. His grandfather Olof Andersson, who changed from the
patronymic Andersson to the
family name Rehnquist, was born in the province of
Värmland and his grandmother was born Adolfina Ternberg in Vretakloster (parish) in
Östergötland. Rehnquist is one of only two Chief Justices of
Swedish descent, the other being
Earl Warren, who had
Norwegian-Swedish ancestry.
* Rehnquist's maternal lineage traces back via New York to the Pilgrims and other early New England settlers.
* Rehnquist married Natalie "Nan" Cornell on
August 29,
1953. She died on
October 17,
1991, after suffering from
ovarian cancer. The couple had three children: James, Janet and Nancy. Janet Rehnquist is a former
Inspector General of the
Department of Health and Human Services.
* Rehnquist often spent summers in
Vermont.
* Rehnquist was a longtime
cigarette smoker.
* Rehnquist added four gold stripes to the sleeves of his robe in 1995, after viewing a production of
Gilbert and Sullivan's
Iolanthe and being inspired by the costume of the
Lord Chancellor. In her remarks at his funeral, Associate Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor said he told her the four gold stripes were "one for every five years" he had been a justice, but he never added more. His successor, Chief Justice
John Roberts, did not continue the practice.
* Rehnquist was born on exactly the same day as former
President Jimmy Carter.
* Rehnquist presided as Chief Justice for 19 years, making him the fourth-longest-serving Chief Justice after
Melville Fuller,
Roger Taney and
John Marshall, and the longest-serving Chief Justice who had previously served as an Associate Justice.
* The last 11 years of Rehnquist's term as Chief Justice (1994-2005) marked the second longest tenure of one makeup of the Supreme Court; from August 3, 1994, when Justice
Breyer joined the Court until September 3, 2005, when Rehnquist died the makeup of the Court was stable for 4049 days. This is second only to the period from February 3, 1812, when
Joseph Story joined the Court until March 18, 1823, when
Henry Brockholst Livingston died, which produced a stable Court for 4061 days.
* Rehnquist was 6 ft 2 in tall.
* Had a
bobblehead doll created for him by the law journal
The Green Bag.
*
*
** Revised edition:
*Molotsky, Irvin. "Doctor Says Pain Drug Caused Justice Rehnquist to Slur His Speech."
The New York Times,
January 2,
1982. p. 9.
*Lane, Charles. "Chief Justice Dies at Age 80."
The Washington Post,
September 4,
2005. p. A01.
*[
5]
*
Supreme court official bio (PDF)*
1969 memo on FOIA policy.
*
Remarks of the Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Swedish Colonial Society's annual luncheon league, Philadelphia,
April 9,
2001*
Remarks by the Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to the American Meteorological Society, October 23, 2001 *
CSPAN article explaining the four gold stripesOpinions
*
Supreme Court Justice Rehnquist's Key Decisions -
The Washington Post*
Legacy of William H. Rehnquist - Majority and Dissenting Opinions in Major Supreme Court CasesDeath
*
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist Dies -
The Washington Post*
Emotion Overcomes Court at Goodbye to 'the Chief' The Washington Post*
The Rehnquist Legacy: 33 Years Turning Back the Court -
The Washington Post*
Tributes from fellow Supreme Court justices*
Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist Dies -
The New York Times*
Chief Justice Rehnquist Dies at 80 -
The New York Times*
William H. Rehnquist Dies at 80; Led Conservative Revolution on Supreme Court -
The New York Times*
The Legacy of Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist -
The New York Times*
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist Dead -
Fox News*
Chief Justice Rehnquist has died -
CNN*
Supreme Court Press Release RE: Funeral Arrangements*Obituaries by
Jan Crawford Greenburg and
The Economist
