Word: rehnquist
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...first 200 years the court struck down only 127. Among these overturned laws was one making it illegal to have a gun within 1,000 ft. of a school zone and others allowing states to be sued for discrimination on the basis of age, disability and other criteria. To Rehnquist's critics, the large number of overturned laws made it appear that he was practicing the same judicial activism for which conservatives attacked the Warren court. "This is not so much the court setting itself as the protector of the states," says David Garrow, a law professor at Emory University...
...Rehnquist always knew where he wanted the court to go. But in recent years it may have become less important to him how the court got there. Even as far back as the late 1980s, a conservative clerk heard him say at lunch, "I used to worry about every little footnote. Now I realize you just need five votes." There's probably no decision where the marshaling of five votes--rather than the legal reasoning behind them--was more critical than the case of Bush v. Gore. At the end of five tense postelection weeks, the court issued an unsigned...
...with any court, what Rehnquist has built could be torn down over time, but it would not be a day's work. "His doctrines are quite entrenched," says Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein, "both because the court respects its own precedents and because there aren't any liberals on the bench. There are moderates, but nobody is leading a countercharge." If anything, it's more likely--particularly if Bush is re-elected--that a conservative will also replace liberal John Paul Stevens, 83. That would give conservatives their Holy Grail, an unstoppable majority. Such a majority would certainly consolidate...
...ultimate measure of any Chief Justice's service is fidelity to the Constitution. By that standard, Rehnquist has earned very high marks. During his tenure as chief, Rehnquist has led the Supreme Court toward restoring the Founders' vision. The Constitution protects society from excessive political power emanating from the Capitol, but for the previous 60 years, the court had often ignored this blueprint, promoting centralization of power at the expense of a decentralized civic order emanating from the states. Rehnquist reversed that trend...
...religion at a disadvantage, as the court had recently interpreted it, but merely to prevent government from promoting religion. Prohibiting aid to religious schools forces parents to pay once for the public school that does not reflect their values and once for a school that does. But last term Rehnquist correctly held that parents should be able to choose between using a voucher at a religious and at a secular school. This decision does more in a practical way for religious freedom than the court has ever done before...