William Rehnquist is dead.

[Stephen Maturin]

And so Richard Nixon has finally lost the power to butt fuck us from beyond the grave. Not surprisingly, none of the Rehnquist retrospectives I've read or seen makes any reference to how he earned his wings in the Republican party. I'd like to say I'll miss the guy, but that would be an outright lie.

Anyhoo, this sets up something we don't see all that often: at least two and quite possibly three (if Bush chooses a sitting Justice as his nominee for Chief Justice) Supreme Court confirmations in rapid succession. That could be entertaining, as could speculating about who will fill the role of unofficial Court Establishment Clause "historian."

[D. Scarlatti]

Edward Lazarus, counselling against "hagiography," is not impressed:

Over 33 years, he compiled a virtually unbroken record of trying to narrow the scope of laws protecting the civil and voting rights of minorities, including watering down the enforcement of Brown -- the landmark decision he opposed at its inception. . . .

We yield enormous power to the unelected Supreme Court because we believe the justices' decision-making process is more considered and deeply reasoned than the processes at work in the elected branches.

As chief justice, Rehnquist undermined this essential rationale for the court's authority. Inside a very narrowly divided court, Rehnquist's approach too frequently reduced the justices' decision making to the shallow calculus of five votes beats four with the winning side announcing the result backed by a peremptory "it-is-so-because-we-say-so" opinion.

Shallow Decisions

[maddog]

Yes, Scarlatti. Regardless of which side of anything you are on, the contrast between the Warren court's major decisions and the Rehnquist court's decisions is marked. Warren worked hard to make the major decisions as close to unanimous as possible. Decisions of a 9-0, 8-1, 7-2, majority provide stable principles of law. The Rehnquist court was frequently splintered, with only three or four in a "lead" opinion, thus leaving 1 justice, or perhaps 2, who joined in a minority opinion providing the lowest-common-denominator fulcrum of 5 votes to see what the heck has been decided. I have been bemoaning this for years, as it leaves little precedential value, and gives extraordinary power to a small minority of the court. They should have worked much harder for consensus.
#540

[D. Scarlatti]

Alan Dershowitz tells it like it is:

He generally opposed the rights of gays, women, blacks, aliens, and religious minorities. He was a friend of corporations, polluters, right wing Republicans, religious fundamentalists, homophobes, and other bigots.

Telling the Truth About Chief Justice Rehnquist

Sean Hannity's fan club is a charming lot too.