William Rehnquist

William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1, 1924 – September 3, 2005) was an American attorney who served as the 16th chief justice of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2005, having previously been an associate justice from 1972 to 1986. Considered a staunch conservative, Rehnquist favored a conception of federalism that emphasized the Tenth Amendment's reservation of powers to the states. 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. 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. Historians debate whether he committed perjury during the hearings by denying his suppression efforts despite at least ten witnesses to the acts, but it is known that at the very least he had defended segregation by private businesses in the early 1960s on...