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Shortly after the death of U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, I was asked to give my opinion about what history would consider his most important decision. That's very tough, given his 33-year tenure on the court. Certainly his decision in Bush v. Gore, which stopped the Florida recounts in the 2000 presidential election, was controversial. His 2002 decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, which allowed federal tax money to be used to pay for children attending religious schools, also was a pivotal one. But in my opinion, the decision that may have the most lasting and far-reaching impact is the lesser-known...

References to foreign law in Supreme Court opinions have become controversial.... True, the references have increased somewhat, but they remain rare, and no one suggests that the court has directly based any of its interpretations of the Constitution on foreign authority. As the issue was framed recently in a debate between Justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia, it comes down to this: The former says that if a judge abroad has dealt with a similar problem, "Why don't I read what he says if it's similar enough? Maybe I'll learn something." Yet the latter would exclude such material as wholly...

IN THE Federalist, James Madison observed that judges are "shoots from the executive stock." With this phrase, Madison was making a point about where, in a government of separated powers, judges come from; and of course, the answer is the executive, since the Constitution plainly sets forth that it is the president who has the authority to select judges.True, the Senate must approve a president's nominees, or else none can have life tenure. But the constitutional structure is such that no one can become a judge unless the president chooses the person. Judges are shoots from the executive stock only,...

William Rehnquist was the most unlikely of appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court. He had no experience as a judge, and his boss, former President Richard Nixon, would embarrassingly refer to him as "Renchburg." But after serving more than 33 years on the Supreme Court, the last 19 as chief justice, Rehnquist proved to be among the greatest justices ever. He set the judicial standard at a very high level. Rehnquist took his seat on the Supreme Court on Jan. 7, 1972. A mere two months later, he brazenly disagreed with all the other justices and issued his first lone...

Stand Up to Them, Mr. President: Nominate Another Scalia by Patrick J. Buchanan Posted Sep 9, 2005 We are about to find out what George W. Bush is made of. For he is approaching the greatest crisis of his presidency. Nine days after 9-11, Bush gave the most powerful speech of his career and rallied a nation. Today, he sits atop a government whose agencies -- FEMA and Homeland Security -- are synonyms for bumbling in the worst disaster in American history. Democrats sense Bush may be assaulted with impunity. He can't or won't fight back. Thus, Hillary hits four...

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died last Saturday at age 80, may be known to the public as a conservative intellectual, but his rulings influenced much more than just the political landscape of the United States. They helped to reshape the technology world as well, and may have even contributed to the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, experts told UPI's Wireless World. By Gene Koprowski

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean complained that the timing of Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s death was “highly suspicious.” “Last year, Reagan conveniently died just in time to take attention away from Bush’s failed Iraq War and boost Bush’s chances for reelection,” said Dean. “Now, in the midst of Bush’s failure to prevent the extermination of downtrodden, minority New Orleans’ hurricane victims, Justice Rehnquist conveniently dies. Am I the only one who sees a pattern here?” Dean charged that presidential advisor Karl Rove was masterminding these strategically timed deaths of conservative icons. “Not only do these deaths distract...

Senate Democrats say the death of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has eased the pressure on them to oppose the Supreme Court nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. but has set the stage for a more contentious battle over the other vacancy on the court. "When you are thinking about the balance of the court, you say, 'O.K., Judge Roberts is replacing Justice Rehnquist,' " said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut. " 'Consider him on his merits, but it doesn't alter the balance of the court.' " Democratic senators and strategists say they are weighing whether to...

ROE v. WADE, 410 U.S. 113, 171 MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, dissenting. The Court's opinion brings to the decision of this troubling question both extensive historical fact and a wealth of legal scholarship. While the opinion thus commands my respect, I find myself nonetheless in fundamental disagreement with those parts of it that invalidate the Texas statute in question, and therefore dissent. (...) I have difficulty in concluding, as the Court does, that the right of "privacy" is involved in this case. Texas, by the statute here challenged, bars the performance of a medical abortion by a licensed physician on a...

President Bush was among the crowd of friends and family who gathered yesterday at St. Matthew's Cathedral in the District to pay tribute to the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. By all accounts, the man who had served on the Supreme Court for more than 33 years was a character. Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, drew laughter at the funeral when he recalled that in January 2001, Chief Justice Rehnquist was scheduled to speak at a Mass. "He said he was going to speak on the disputed presidential election." Cardinal McCarrick said he privately worried that it...

Death distorts perception. We all know that. It invites exaggeration. In its immediate presence, time has not yet worked its slow miracle: proportion. Balance is lost, judgments made under the pressures of grief, the long view obscured.

Replacing Rehnquist before O'Connor makes matters tougher on the Bush administration and guarantees a showdown with liberal interest groups.A FEW MONTHS AGO, most observers expected Chief Justice William Rehnquist's failing health to trigger President Bush's first Supreme Court nomination. But Rehnquist hung on, to the surprise of many, and it was Sandra Day O'Connor whose resignation brought about the first vacancy on the Court since 1994. If that seems like a long time, it is: never before in American history have so many years elapsed between vacancies on the Supreme Court. President Bush nominated Judge John Roberts to replace O'Connor,...

From the lonely dissenter's vantage point in the 7-2 Roe vs. Wade juggernaut 32 years ago, William Rehnquist saw a future where such decisions, reviled even by many on the left for their lack of foundation in constitutional law, would no longer emanate from the Supreme Court chambers. He was even a conservative revolutionary, say some of the pundits who used his death Saturday as a vehicle to chronicle his long career on the bench. In truth, there was no revolution. Where Chief Justice Rehnquist won, he prevailed in increments. On the larger issues that were important to him, including...

What a concept: Prayer in a public place As William Rehnquist's casket was placed in the rotunda of the Supreme Court, I asked myself: "What's wrong with this picture?" Then it hit me: A minister was actually praying, calling Rehnquist a "child of God," right there in the entrance hall of the Supreme Court! It is a fact that the Ten Commandments are posted above the bench in the chamber where these nine folks preside. And each session begins with the words " . . . and God save this honorable court." If an American child were to attempt that...

"William Rehnquist is the judicial godfather of the Bush administration and today's Republican right."- Bruce Shapiro, The Nation IF RICHARD NIXON, who appointed William Rehnquist to the Supreme Court, or Ronald Reagan, who elevated him to chief justice, were alive today, they'd have to congratulate themselves on a job well done. David Souter and Anthony Kennedy have listed leftward - dramatically so at times. Sandra Day O'Connor, for whom the right had even higher hopes when she joined the court 24 years ago, was all over the board ideologically. Earl Warren, Harry Blackmun, William Brennan and John Paul Stevens also...

REHNQUIST-CATHEDRAL Sep-6-2005 (570 words) xxxn Lutheran's funeral in Catholic cathedral unusual, but permitted By Patricia ZaporCatholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The announcement that the funeral of Chief Justice William Rehnquist would be held at Washington's St. Matthew Cathedral raised questions about the ecumenical provisions allowing a Lutheran funeral in a Catholic church. After his Sept. 3 death, the funeral for Rehnquist, a Lutheran, was scheduled for the Catholic cathedral of the Archdiocese of Washington. The Sept. 7 funeral was to be a Lutheran service, which is permitted in a Catholic church with the approval of the local bishop, said...

IN October 1971, the White House tapped Assistant Attorney General William H. Rehnquist to respond to my critique of someone at the top of its short list for one of the two vacancies created by the nearly simultaneous resignations of two justices. I found his tepid apologia underwhelming. Yet within two months, when Mr. Rehnquist took the Supreme Court seat once marked for the target of my critique, I began to see how foolish it would have been to measure him by his defense of a candidate about whom he probably felt lukewarm. While it may be too soon to...

Statement from President George W. Bush on the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist The Roosevelt Room 10:01 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Our nation is saddened today by the news that Chief Justice William Rehnquist passed away last night. Laura and I send our respect and deepest sympathy to this good man's children, Jim, Janet, and Nancy. We send our respect to all the members of the Rehnquist family. William H. Rehnquist was born and raised in Wisconsin. He was the grandson of Swedish immigrants. Like so many of his generation, he served in the Army during World War II....

My mother always told me that when a person dies, one should not say anything bad about him. My mother was wrong. History requires truth, not puffery or silence, especially about powerful governmental figures. And obituaries are a first draft of history. So here’s the truth about Chief Justice Rehnquist you won’t hear on Fox News or from politicians. Chief Justice William Rehnquist set back liberty, equality, and human rights perhaps more than any American judge of this generation. His rise to power speaks volumes about the current state of American values. Let’s begin at the beginning. Rehnquist bragged about...

Teary-eyed Supreme Court justices and a long line of other Americans paid their last respects to William H. Rehnquist on Tuesday at the court where he served for 33 years. Among the pallbearers was his former clerk, John Roberts, the man chosen to succeed the nation's 16th chief justice. Roberts and seven other pallbearers bore the flag-draped casket up some 40 steps of the high court to the Great Hall, where marble busts of all the former chief justices line the wall. Several of the justices wept as they stood around Rehnquist's casket, including Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Rehnquist died...