Rhenquist retirement portrayed in the media as a near certainty
If you were reading the papers over the weekend, you may have gotten the impression that Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rhenquist had already announced his retirement, instead of simply being the subject of rumors.
The New York Times reported yesterday that liberal and conservative activist groups have already begun lobbying campaigns relating to Rhenquist’s retirement, which could come as early as this month.
As the article explained, it’s not just advocacy organizations planning strategy. The Bush administration and Republicans in Congress are getting prepared as well.
“Republicans have been raising money and planning strategy under the guidance of the former White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, who was a principal strategist in the bitter struggle over Justice Clarence Thomas’s nomination in 1991,” the Times reported. “Two weeks ago, White House and Justice Department officials met in a Washington law office with several Republican veterans of confirmation battles, including Mr. Gray, to discuss how to deal with liberal attacks on a Bush nominee. The meeting opened with the veterans recalling the failed effort to put Robert H. Bork on the Supreme Court in 1987 and the successful campaign to confirm Mr. Thomas in 1991, after he was confronted with reports that he had sexually harassed Anita Hill, his former employee.”
The LA Times, meanwhile, published an excellent review of Rhenquist’s service at the high court — the kind of piece papers run when someone either retires or dies.
Under the headline, “Rhenquist Revival Is Near End,” the article points out many of the highlights (or lowlights, depending on your perspective) from the chief justice’s lengthy judicial career. Rhenquist is noted for:
* Opposition to civil rights — Rhenquist, as a confident young Supreme Court clerk, expressed disdain for liberals and their “pathological search for discrimination” against blacks in the South. Worse, in 1952, when the court was considering the challenge to segregation in the South, Rehnquist wrote a memo for Justice Jackson that defended the 19th century “separate but equal” doctrine.
* Appetite for executions — When the justices briefly halted the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of espionage, Rehnquist wondered why “the highest court of the nation must behave like a bunch of old women every time they encounter the death penalty.”
* Defense of police brutality — In 1952, when two criminal suspects received broken ribs and facial bruises before signing a pre-written confession, Rehnquist urged that the court uphold the men’s conviction and declare the use of force to be a “harmless error.” He used identical language as a justice in 1991, ruling that a coerced confession could be considered a “harmless error” when there was other strong evidence to show the defendant was guilty.
* Hostility to church-state separation — Rhenquist had little use for Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation between church and state,” which the chief justice described as a “misleading metaphor based on bad history.” Throughout his career on the bench, Rhenquist argued the First Amendment’s protections for religious liberty did not prohibit government-sponsored worship, state endorsement of religious texts such as the Ten Commandments, and direct public aid to religious ministries with tax dollars.
If Rhenquist does retire as expected, I can’t say I’m going to miss him.
Of course, Bush is likely to nominate someone at least as conservative, thereby leaving the current ideological balance in place. Bush, however, will nominate someone significantly younger who will be around to fight for Rhenquist’s ideas for decades to come.