William H. Rehnquist

William Hubbs Rehnquist ( ; October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney and jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years, first as an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and then as the 16th chief justice from 1986 until his death in 2005. Considered a staunch conservative, Rehnquist favored a conception of federalism that emphasized the Tenth Amendment's reservation of powers to the states. Under this view of federalism, the Court, for the first time since the 1930s (with the exception of '' National League of Cities v. Usery'', which was overruled in ''Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority''), struck down an act of Congress as exceeding its power under the Commerce Clause.

Rehnquist grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during the final years of World War II. After the war's end in 1945, he studied political science at Stanford University and Harvard University, then attended Stanford Law School, where he was an editor of the ''Stanford Law Review'' and graduated first in his class. Rehnquist clerked for Justice Robert H. Jackson during the Supreme Court's 1952–53 term, then entered private practice in Phoenix, Arizona. Rehnquist served as a legal adviser for Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in the 1964 U.S. presidential election, and President Richard Nixon appointed him U.S. Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel in 1969. In that capacity, he played a role in forcing Justice Abe Fortas to resign for accepting $20,000 from financier Louis Wolfson, and the U.S. Senate confirmed him that year. During his confirmation hearings, Rehnquist was criticized for allegedly opposing the Supreme Court's decision in ''Brown v. Board of Education'' and allegedly taking part in voter suppression efforts targeting minorities as a lawyer. Whether he committed perjury during the hearings is debated by historians, but it is known that at the very least he had defended segregation by private businesses in the early 1960s on the grounds of freedom of association. Rehnquist quickly established himself as the Burger Court's most conservative member. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan nominated Rehnquist to succeed retiring Chief Justice Warren Burger, and the Senate confirmed him.

Rehnquist served as Chief Justice for nearly 19 years, making him the fourth-longest-serving Chief and the eighth-longest-serving Justice. He became an intellectual and social leader of the Rehnquist Court, earning respect even from the justices who frequently opposed his opinions. Though he remained a strong member of the conservative wing of the court, Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were often regarded as more conservative. As Chief Justice, Rehnquist presided over the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. Rehnquist wrote the majority opinions in '' United States v. Lopez'' (1995) and '' United States v. Morrison'' (2000), holding in both cases that Congress had exceeded its power under the Commerce Clause. He opposed ''Roe v. Wade'' and continued to argue that ''Roe'' had been incorrectly decided in '' Planned Parenthood v. Casey''. In '' Bush v. Gore'', he voted with the court's majority to end the Florida recount in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

Early life

Rehnquist was born on October 1, 1924, and grew up in the Milwaukee suburb of Shorewood. His father, William Benjamin Rehnquist, was a sales manager at various times for printing equipment, paper, and medical supplies and devices; his mother, Margery (''née'' Peck)—the daughter of a local hardware store owner who also served as an officer and director of a small insurance company—was a local civic activist, as well as translator and homemaker. His paternal grandparents immigrated from Sweden.It means, in direct translation to English: ''reindeer twig''.

Rehnquist graduated from Shorewood High School in 1942.Lane, Charles
"Head of the Class: Fresh from service in World War II, William Rehnquist went west unsure of his future. What he found on the Farm changed his life, and the future of the country."
, ''Stanford Magazine'', July / August 2005. Accessed September 17, 2007. "So, for the brainy kid they had called 'Bugs' back home at suburban Shorewood High School, just outside Milwaukee, weather was a key criterion in selecting a college." He attended Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio, for one quarter in the fall of 1942 before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Forces, the predecessor of the U.S. Air Force. He served from 1943 to 1946, mostly in assignments in the United States. He was put into a pre-meteorology program and 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 maintenance and repair of weather instruments. In the summer of 1945, Rehnquist went overseas as a weather observer in North Africa.

After leaving the military in 1946, Rehnquist attended Stanford University with financial assistance from the G.I. Bill. He graduated in 1948 with Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in political science and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He did graduate study in government at Harvard University, where he received another Master of Arts in 1950. He then returned to Stanford to attend the Stanford Law School, where he was an editor of the ''Stanford Law Review''. Rehnquist was strongly conservative from an early age and wrote that he "hated" liberal Justice Hugo Black in his diary at Stanford. He graduated in 1952 ranked first in his class with a Bachelor of Laws. Rehnquist was in the same class at Stanford Law as Sandra Day O'Connor, with whom he would later serve on the Supreme Court. They briefly dated during law school, Biskupic, Joan. ''Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court became its most influential justice''. New York: Harper Collins, 2005 and Rehnquist proposed marriage to her. O'Connor declined as she was by then dating her future husband (this was not publicly known until 2018). Rehnquist married Nan Cornell in 1953.

Law clerk at the Supreme Court

After law school, Rehnquist served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court justice Robert H. Jackson from 1952 to 1953. Biskupic, Joan
"Rehnquist left Supreme Court with conservative legacy"
. ''USA Today''. September 4, 2005. While clerking for Jackson, he wrote a memorandum arguing against federal court-ordered school desegregation while the Court was considering the landmark case ''Brown v. Board of Education'', which was decided in 1954. Rehnquist's 1952 memo, "A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases", defended the separate-but-equal doctrine. In the memo, Rehnquist wrote:

In both his 1971 United States Senate confirmation hearing for associate justice and his 1986 hearing for chief justice, Rehnquist testified that the memorandum reflected Jackson's views rather than his own. Rehnquist said, "I believe that the memorandum was prepared by me as a statement of Justice Jackson's tentative views for his own use."1971 confirmation hearings. Jackson's longtime secretary and confidante Elsie Douglas said during Rehnquist's 1986 hearings that his allegation was "a smear of a great man, for whom I served as secretary for many years. Justice Jackson did not ask law clerks to express his views. He expressed his own and they expressed theirs. That is what happened in this instance." But Justices Douglas's and Frankfurter's papers indicate that Jackson voted for ''Brown'' in 1954 only after changing his mind.Justice William O. Douglas wrote: "In the original conference there were only four who voted that segregation in the public schools was unconstitutional. Those four were Black, Burton, Minton, and myself." See Bernard Schwartz,
Decision: How the Supreme Court Decides Cases
'', page 96 (Oxford 1996). Likewise, Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote: "I have no doubt that if the segregation cases had reached decision last term, there would have been four dissenters—Vinson, Reed, Jackson, and Clark." Ibid.

At his 1986 hearing for chief justice, Rehnquist tried to further distance himself from the 1952 memo, saying, "The bald statement that Plessy'' was right and should be reaffirmed' was not an accurate reflection of my own views at the time."Adam Liptak
"The Memo That Rehnquist Wrote and Had to Disown"
, ''NY Times'' (September 11, 2005) But he acknowledged defending ''Plessy'' in arguments with fellow law clerks."Memos may not hold Roberts's opinions"
, ''The Boston Globe'', Peter S. Canellos, August 23, 2005, Rehnquist said in 1986 about his conversations with other clerks about ''Plessy'' that he: S. Hrg. 99–1067, Hearings Before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the Nomination of Justice William Hubbs Rehnquist to be Chief Justice of the United States (July 29, 30, 31, and August 1, 1986).

Several commentators have concluded that the memo reflected Rehnquist's own views, not Jackson's. A biography of Jackson corroborates this, stating that Jackson instructed his clerks to express their views, not his. Further corroboration is found in a 2012 ''Boston College Law Review'' article that analyzes a 1955 letter to Frankfurter that criticized Jackson.

In any event, while serving on the Supreme Court, Rehnquist made no effort to reverse or undermine ''Brown'' and often relied on it as precedent. ("Rehnquist ultimately embraced the Warren Court's ''Brown'' decision, and after he joined the Court he made no attempt to dismantle the civil-rights revolution, as political opponents feared he would"). In 1985, he said there was a "perfectly reasonable" argument against ''Brown'' and in favor of ''Plessy'', even though he now saw ''Brown'' as correct.

In a memorandum to Jackson about '' Terry v. Adams'',''Terry v. Adams''
, 345 U.S. 461 (1953) which involved the right of blacks to vote in Texas primaries where a non-binding white-only pre-election was being used to preselect the winner before the actual primary, Rehnquist wrote:

In another memorandum to Jackson about the same case, Rehnquist wrote:

Nevertheless, Rehnquist recommended to Jackson that the Supreme Court should agree to hear ''Terry''.

Private practice

After his Supreme Court clerkship, Rehnquist entered private practice in Phoenix, Arizona, where he worked from 1953 to 1969. He began his legal work in the firm of Denison Kitchel, subsequently serving as the national manager of Barry M. Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. Prominent clients included Jim Hensley, John McCain's future father-in-law. During these years, Rehnquist was active in the Republican Party and served as a legal advisor under Kitchel to Goldwater's campaign. He collaborated with Harry Jaffa on Goldwater's speeches.

During both his 1971 hearing for associate justice and his 1986 hearing for chief justice, several people came forward to allege that Rehnquist had participated in Operation Eagle Eye, a Republican Party voter suppression operation in the 1960s in Arizona to challenge minority voters.Roddy, Dennis (December 2, 2000)
"Just Our Bill"
. ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette''. Rehnquist denied the charges, and Vincent Maggiore, then chairman of the Phoenix-area Democratic Party, said he had never heard any negative reports about Rehnquist's Election Day activities. "All of these things", Maggiore said, "would have come through me."Wilentz, Amy (August 11, 1986)
"Through the Wringer"
''Time''.

Justice Department

When Richard Nixon was elected president 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. Nixon mistakenly called him "Renchburg" in several of the tapes of Oval Office conversations revealed during the Watergate investigations.

Rehnquist played a role in the investigation of Justice Abe Fortas for accepting $20,000 from Louis Wolfson

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