Chief Justice William Rehnquist

Chief Justice William Rehnquist joined the U.S. Supreme Court as an Associate Justice on January 7, 1972, replacing Justice John Marshall Harlan II. He was elevated to Chief Justice on September 26, 1986, replacing Chief Justice Warren Burger. Rehnquist was born on October 1, 1924 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He briefly attended Kenyon College in Ohio before joining the U.S. Army Air Forces (now the U.S. Air Force) during the Second World War. He served as a weather observer in North Africa. Rehnquist then attended Stanford University, graduating in 1948. He also received a master’s degree from Harvard University before he returned to Stanford for law school, graduating in 1952.

Rehnquist launched his legal career by clerking for Justice Robert H. Jackson on the U.S. Supreme Court. As a clerk, he wrote a memo for Jackson that defended the "separate but equal" principle and the notorious Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which the Court later repudiated in Brown v. Board of Education. Whether the memo represented Rehnquist’s view or Jackson’s view remains unclear, but Rehnquist never sought to reverse Brown while on the Court.

After his clerkship, Rehnquist entered private practice in Arizona. In 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed him as an Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel, part of the U.S. Department of Justice. He held this position for nearly three years.

On October 22, 1971, Nixon nominated Rehnquist to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed him on December 10 in a 68-26 vote, and he took the judicial oath about a month later. Rehnquist often voiced more conservative views than his colleagues on the Warren Burger Court. He earned the nickname of "Lone Ranger" for his solo dissents.

On June 20, 1986, President Ronald Reagan nominated Rehnquist to the Chief Justice seat on the Court. The Senate confirmed him on September 17 in a 65-33 vote, and he took the seat about a week later. Rehnquist would serve as Chief Justice for nearly two decades. He also presided over the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999, in which he was careful to play an unobtrusive role.

Legal scholars often remember Rehnquist for his efforts to limit federal power. Two of his most notable opinions came in U.S. v. Lopez and U.S. v. Morrison, which found that Congress had exceeded the scope of its commerce power under the Constitution. However, he also wrote for the Court in South Dakota v. Dole, which took a broad view of the spending power of Congress.

As an Associate Justice, Rehnquist was one of only two dissenters from the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which found a constitutional right to abortion. In a concurrence/dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey two decades later, he declared that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled. Rehnquist also supported capital punishment and often voted against constitutional protection for LGBTQ+ rights. He took a lenient view of the separation of church and state required by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. For example, he wrote a plurality opinion upholding a display of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol.

Rehnquist died on September 3, 2005 in Arlington, Virginia and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. He was the first Justice to die while on the Court in over half a century. Chief Justice John Roberts replaced him.

Selected Opinions by Chief Justice Rehnquist:

Van Orden v. Perry (2005)

Topic: Religion

While the Ten Commandments are religious, they also have a historical meaning. Simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the Establishment Clause.

Thornton v. U.S. (2004)