William Rehnquist
William Hubbs Rehnquist (/ˈrɛnkwɪst/ REN-kwist; October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney and jurist who served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 33 years. Rehnquist was an associate justice from 1972 to 1986 and 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, struck down an act of Congress as exceeding its power under the Commerce Clause.
"Rehnquist" redirects here. For the surname, see Rehnquist (surname).
William Rehnquist
Richard Nixon
Frank Wozencraft
3
United States
1943–1946
Rehnquist grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and served in the U.S. Army Air Forces from 1943 to 1946. Afterward, 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 1952–1953 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 before Wolfson was convicted of selling unregistered shares.[1]
In 1971, Nixon nominated Rehnquist to succeed Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan II, 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 (1954) and allegedly taking part in voter suppression efforts targeting minorities as a lawyer in the early 1960s.[2] Historians debate whether he committed perjury during the hearings by denying his suppression efforts despite at least ten witnesses to the acts,[2] 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.[2] 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 justice and the eighth-longest-serving justice overall. He became an intellectual and social leader of the Rehnquist Court, earning respect even from the justices who frequently opposed his opinions. 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 (1973) and continued to argue that Roe had been incorrectly decided in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). 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 and education[edit]
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 a translator and homemaker.[3] His paternal grandparents immigrated from Sweden.[4][5]
Rehnquist graduated from Shorewood High School in 1942.[6] 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.[7]
After leaving the military in 1946, Rehnquist attended Stanford University with financial assistance from the G.I. Bill.[8] 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 on the Stanford Law Review.[9] Rehnquist was strongly conservative from an early age and wrote that he "hated" liberal Justice Hugo Black in his diary at Stanford.[10] He graduated in 1952 ranked first in his class with a Bachelor of Laws.[8] 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,[11] 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).[12] Rehnquist married Nan Cornell in 1953.
Private practice[edit]
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.[28] During these years, Rehnquist was active in the Republican Party and served as a legal advisor under Kitchel to Goldwater's campaign.[29] He collaborated with Harry Jaffa on Goldwater's speeches.[30]
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 early 1960s in Arizona to challenge minority voters.[31] 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."[32]
Justice Department[edit]
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.[33] 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.[34]
Rehnquist played a role in the investigation of Justice Abe Fortas for accepting $20,000 from Louis Wolfson, a financier under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.[35] Although other justices had made similar arrangements, Nixon saw the Wolfson payment as a political opportunity to cement a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.[35] Nixon wanted the Justice Department to investigate Fortas but was unsure if this was legal, as there was no precedent for such an activity.[36] Rehnquist sent Attorney General John N. Mitchell a memo arguing that an investigation would not violate the separation of powers.[36] Rehnquist did not handle the direct investigation, but was told by Mitchell to "assume the most damaging set of inferences about the case were true" and "determine what action the Justice Department could take."[37] The worst inference Rehnquist could draw was that Fortas had somehow intervened in the prosecution of Wolfson, which, according to former White House Counsel John W. Dean, was untrue.[37] Based on this false accusation, Rehnquist argued that the Justice Department could investigate Fortas.[37] After being investigated by Mitchell, who threatened to also investigate his wife, Fortas resigned.[38]
Because he was well-placed in the Justice Department, many suspected Rehnquist could have been the source known as Deep Throat during the Watergate scandal.[39] Once Bob Woodward revealed on May 31, 2005, that W. Mark Felt was Deep Throat, this speculation ended.
Personal health[edit]
After Rehnquist's death in 2005, the FBI honored a Freedom of Information Act request detailing the Bureau's background investigation before Rehnquist's nomination as chief justice. The files reveal that for a period, Rehnquist had been addicted to Placidyl, a drug widely prescribed for insomnia. It was not until he was hospitalized that doctors learned of the extent of his dependency.
Freeman Cary, a U.S. Capitol physician, prescribed Rehnquist Placidyl for insomnia and back pain from 1972 to 1981 in doses exceeding the recommended limits, but the FBI report concluded that Rehnquist was already taking the drug as early as 1970.[113] By the time he sought treatment, Rehnquist was taking three times the prescribed dose of the drug nightly.[114] On December 27, 1981, Rehnquist entered George Washington University Hospital for treatment of back pain and Placidyl dependency. There, he underwent a monthlong detoxification process.[114] While hospitalized, he had typical withdrawal symptoms, including hallucinations and paranoia. For example, "One doctor said Rehnquist thought he heard voices outside his hospital room plotting against him and had 'bizarre ideas and outrageous thoughts', including imagining 'a CIA plot against him' and seeming to see the design patterns on the hospital curtains change configuration."[115]
For several weeks before his hospitalization, Rehnquist had slurred his words, but there were no indications he was otherwise impaired.[113][116] Law professor Michael Dorf observed that "none of the Justices, law clerks or others who served with Rehnquist have so much as hinted that his Placidyl addiction affected his work, beyond its impact on his speech."[117]
Replacement as Chief Justice[edit]
Rehnquist's death, just over two months after O'Connor announced her impending retirement, left two vacancies for President Bush to fill. On September 5, 2005, Bush withdrew the nomination of John Roberts of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to replace O'Connor as associate justice 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. He had clerked for Rehnquist in 1980–1981.[130] O'Connor, who had made the effective date of her resignation the confirmation of her successor, continued to serve on the Court until Samuel Alito was confirmed and sworn in on January 31, 2006.
Eulogizing Rehnquist in the Harvard Law Review, Roberts wrote that he was "direct, straightforward, utterly without pretense—and a patriot who loved and served his country. He was completely unaffected in manner."[131]
Family life[edit]
Rehnquist's paternal grandparents immigrated separately from Sweden in 1880. His grandfather Olof Andersson, who changed his surname from the patronymic Andersson to the family name Rehnquist, was born in the province of Värmland; his grandmother was born Adolfina Ternberg in the Vreta Kloster parish in Östergötland. Rehnquist is one of two chief justices of Swedish descent, the other being Earl Warren, who had Norwegian and Swedish ancestry.[132]
Rehnquist married Natalie "Nan" Cornell on August 29, 1953. The daughter of a San Diego physician, she worked as an analyst on the CIA's Austria desk before their marriage.[133] The couple had three children: James, a lawyer and college basketball player; Janet, a lawyer; and Nancy, an editor (including of her father's books) and homemaker.[134][135] Nan Rehnquist died on October 17, 1991, aged 62, of ovarian cancer.[128] Rehnquist was survived by nine grandchildren.[136][137]
Shortly after moving to Washington, D.C., the Rehnquists purchased a home in Greensboro, Vermont, where they spent many vacations.[138]