Talk:William Rehnquist

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Good article William Rehnquist was one of the Social sciences and society good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

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[edit] Image

The main image of Rehnquist seems way too big. Could we make it a bit smaller perhaps? It reminds me of idol worship or something- quite vulgar really, how big it is.

LOL, I think someone took care of this. I don't see anything that resembles idol worship Gautam Discuss 23:49, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rehnquist and states' rights

Rehnquist certainly did mention congruence and proportionality when referring to Boerne, and dissenting Justices did refer to Katzenbach v. Morgan. They also mentioned the post Civil War origin of the Fourteenth Amendment as evidence that states' rights was not the object of that particular amendment.Jimmuldrow 17:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Jimmuldrow, as you know we have both been editing the Wikipedia page on William Rehnquist. You recently made some edits here. I enjoy working with other editors to improve an article, but I hope you’ll reconsider these edits. They make the Wikipedia article into more of an opinion piece. You’re deleting useful links, and making arguments that were not even made by the dissenters or the majority in these cases. I hope you’ll reconsider.
Regarding “congruence and proportionality”, you haven’t cited a case referring to Boerne in those terms.
Regarding Boerne, I’d a appreciate if you would let us know which opinion other than Kennedy’s majority opinion mentioned Katzenbach. I believe you are mistaken that any of those other opinions mention Katzenbach. Nor did any of the opinions in that case mention “ratchets” or “proporionality” or “congruence” as you imply.
When I actually quote the actual holding of Boerne (congressional “conclusions are entitled to much deference….[but] Congress' discretion is not unlimited”), you delete it, along with the wikipedia link to section 5 of the 14th Amendment.
Regarding Romer, Kimel, and Garrett, you have deleted multiple Wikepedia links that I inserted: sovereign immunity, Equal Protection Clause, rational basis review, strict scrutiny, and 'Romer v. Evans. More importantly, you insist on making arguments; the least you should do is quote from the opinions you agree with, instead of supplementing those opinions with your own. For example, regarding Romer, I quoted the dissent that Rehnquist joined, which contended that Coloradans were entitled to “preserve traditional sexual mores” even if that meant discriminating against gay residents. You deleted the fact that Rehnquist joined any dissent, and instead you simply accused Rehnquist of thinking “that majority rights were more important than equal protection of the laws for gay residents.” No justice accused Rehnquist of believing that the Colorado law violated equal protection; Rehnquist never said so himself.
And, no justice in those three cases disagreed with the level of scrutiny that was applied. Yet, you go on at great length about it, as though it were a central point of dispute.
You also erased the statement of the holding in Sandoval: that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act applies only to intentional discrimination, so there is no private right of action to enforce certain regulations promulgated under Title VI. You also erased the statement that Sandoval was a statutory rather than constitutional case. These are the most basic features of the case, and deleting them obscures what the case was about.

Sorry if I erased too much. Next time you don't know, say you don't know. Boerne was referred to as a precedent for a number of other cases. It wasn't just one case. The "ratchet" remark is not from Katzenbach itself, but was used by legal beagles to describe the gist of it both in Wikipedia and elsewhere. It was mentioned in the Garrett dissent, although two different precedents were mentioned that both have the name Katzenbach, so you have to read carefully. Also, "congruence" and "proportionality" were used by Court justices, including Rehnquist, when referring to the Boerne precedent. For Sandoval, that's a matter of interpretation, as the facts of Cannon were ignored because of a dispute over whether a footnote mentioning the facts of the case was part of the holding of the case. Also, to say the justices all agreed with five to four decisions is not quite right. There were important differences in interpretation. Which is why they were five to four decisions.Jimmuldrow 17:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I probably deleted more than I should have out of frustration, since you deleted a lot of facts because you didn't know, and assumed too much.Jimmuldrow 17:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Here's a quote from Boerne, "There must be a congruence and proportionality between the injury to be prevented or remedied and the means adopted to that end." OK now? Jimmuldrow 17:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Jim, please pretend I'm an idiot, and write the article accordingly, with cites to all the stuff that you wish I knew about. Just citing "a number of other cases" or "legal beagles" is not adequate; if you think those cases are important enough to allude to, then at least give an example, with a link and a cite. Also, if you erased too much, I'd realy appreciate it if you'd restore what you don't think you should have erased. Regarding "congruence" and "proportionality", none of the dissenters argued against those standards, right? But you make it sound like Rehnquist was on a mission to minitiarize the Equal Protection Clause. Isn't it okay to mention that this point wasn't disputed?Ferrylodge 18:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Again, there were major differences in interpretation. I'm sorry I wiped out too much of your stuff. Sorry again, I didn't mean to insult or offend. Jimmuldrow 18:12, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


Here's what Rehnquist said about sovereign immunity and the Eleventh Amendment in his Garrett decision:

The Eleventh Amendment provides:

"The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State."


Although by its terms the Amendment applies only to suits against a State by citizens of another State, our cases have extended the Amendment's applicability to suits by citizens against their own States. See Kimel v. Florida Bd. of Regents, 528 U. S. 62, 72-73 (2000); College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Ed. Expense Bd., 527 U. S. 666, 669-670 (1999); Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 54 (1996); Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1, 15 (1890). Jimmuldrow 22:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Breyer and Stevens on state action in their Morrison dissent

Given my conclusion on the Commerce Clause question, I need not consider Congress’ authority under §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nonetheless, I doubt the Court’s reasoning rejecting that source of authority. The Court points out that in United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629 (1883), and the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883), the Court held that §5 does not authorize Congress to use the Fourteenth Amendment as a source of power to remedy the conduct of private persons. Ante, at 21—23. That is certainly so. The Federal Government’s argument, however, is that Congress used §5 to remedy the actions of state actors, namely, those States which, through discriminatory design or the discriminatory conduct of their officials, failed to provide adequate (or any) state remedies for women injured by gender-motivated violence–a failure that the States, and Congress, documented in depth. See ante, at 3—4, n. 7, 27—28 (Souter, J., dissenting) (collecting sources).

Neither Harris nor the Civil Rights Cases considered this kind of claim. Jimmuldrow 04:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

If you want to expand the quote from the dissent then fine, although I don't see that it adds much. However, I must object to the following paragraph that you want to insert after the quote from the Morrison dissent:
"Neither Harris nor the Civil Rights Cases considered this kind of claim. Rehnquist's majority opinion for Morrison mentioned precedents for limiting the scope of the Equal Protection Clause in addition to a limited interpretation of the commerce clause. It mentioned United States v. Cruikshank (1876) as a precedent for applying the state action doctrine to law enforcement (or lack of it) by states. Cruikshank arose out of the Colfax Massacre, and held that the Fourteenth Amendment applied only to state actions, not private acts of violence. United States v. Harris (1883), which Rehnquist listed as one of the controlling precedents for Morrison, held that the Equal Protection Clause did not apply to an 1883 prison lynching since the Fourteenth Amendment applied only to states, not to individual criminal matters. The Civil Rights Cases (1883), which Rehnquist listed as another controlling precedent for Morrison, allowed segregation by striking down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, a statute that prohibited racial discrimination in public accommodations. Rehnquist said that the Civil Rights Cases precedent meant that state laws didn't need to be applied equally, as 'There were state laws on the books bespeaking equality of treatment, but in the administration of these laws there was discrimination against newly freed slaves.'"
Please put it in the article on the EP Clause or the article about Morrison. I may object to it there too, but at least you'd have better luck. This is a bio, and there is no need to go into such excruciating detail about tons of different cases. Moreover, you've just quoted Stevens and Breyer saying that neither Harris nor the Civil Rights cases is on point, and yet you insist on adding a paragraph detailing the history of those cases. It's just not a useful addition to the article, either from a pro-Rehnquist point of view, or an anti-Rehnquist point of view.Ferrylodge 05:50, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sandoval

The description of the Sandoval case needs work. First of all, the description needs to be shortened. This case was about statutory construction. Few would name it as one of the most significant of the Rehnquist Court.

This bio now says “'Cannon' mentioned the Equal Protection Clause in footnotes.” But Cannon had virtually nothing to do with the Equal Protection Clause. I really don’t think it’s appropriate to try to bring in the Equal Protection Clause into a description of Sandoval or Cannon, which involved statutory construction rather than constitutional construction. Yes, Sandoval cited Cannon, and Cannon did mention the EP Clause very briefly in FN 8 of Powell’s dissent (as part of the title of a cited law review article), but that was very tangential, and totally separate from the discussion of disparate impact facts in Stevens' FN 2. The footnotes mentioned a lot of things in Cannon, but that doesn’t mean we have to describe every one of them in this Rehnquist biographical article.

Also, in the description of Sandoval, I had said that “The 'Sandoval' majority (including the Chief Justice) also said that §602 expressly provides different enforcement measures than §601, although the dissenters did not view that as dispositive.” This was deleted. But is it not true that §602 expressly provides different enforcement measures than §601? And, the Sandoval Court did NOT say that these were completely separate sections; on the contrary, the Court said that 602 authorizes agencies to enforce 601, right? And, why can’t we have a plain English description of the case in the first sentence (i.e. it was about driver license exams), instead of legal gobbledygook in the first sentence?

I've edited the description of Sandoval, and I hope this will be acceptable.Ferrylodge 14:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

"Dispositive" is plain English? Also, exluding the disparate impact facts of Cannon reversed the meaning of it with relation to Sandoval, so I don't see why you'd say something else about the case but not that. Also, you missed the part of the back-and-forthing over sections 601 and 602 that the outcome of the case depends on. The case was confusing, so read again slowly. Also, you're the one that put in mention of the Equal Protection Clause. I'll remove that part of it.Jimmuldrow 19:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Jim, regarding the footnote, you wrote "The Court divided five to four over whether the disparate impact facts regarding 'Cannon' mentioned in a footnote were part of the holding of the case, with the majority voting to exclude the footnote."
But that sentence of yours is ambiguous about whether the footnote was in Cannon or in Sandoval. I think it's more accurate, and more concise, to say: "The Court voted 5-4 that various facts (regarding disparate impacts) mentioned in a footnote of 'Cannon' were not part of the holding of 'Cannon'."
Also, you wrote this long passage about Sandoval:
"Another dispute was over whether §602 of Title VI needed to repeat the rights creating language (race, color, or national origin) in §601 of the same title in order to allow a private cause of action to sue for policies that have a disparate impact on minorities. The Court majority said that these were completely separate sections. The dissenters said that they were closely related sections of the same title, Title VI."
Can't we just say: "The majority viewed it as significant that §602 of Title VI did not repeat the rights-creating language (race, color, or national origin) in §601"? This is much more concise. Going into such excruciating detail about Sandoval in this bio just seems unnecessary to me. Sandoval is not even regarded as a major case of the Rehnquist Court. I've tried to be obliging about various cases that you've wanted to discuss in this bio, and the bio can discuss Sandoval too, but I really would like to abbreviate it as described above. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ferrylodge (talk • contribs) 20:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Nixon

The first paragraph on Rehnquist as an associate justice now says that, "Former President Nixon had the FBI run criminal background checks on Senate witnesses who opposed Rehnquist’s nomination to the Supreme Court." The footnote does not include a link, but the correct link is http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/03/nixon.foreign.service.ap/

As can be seen from this article, Rehnquist is barely mentioned. The fact that Nixon may have asked the FBI to do background checks on some witnesses is not big news. Nixon was paranoid and asked the FBI to do background checks on lots of people. If the FBI intimidated witnesses, that would be big news and relevant, but merely doing a backgrounder is not. It's well known that the FBI does extensive background checks of judicial nominees. That's not big news either. What would be big news is if a criminal background check uncovered a criminal record.Ferrylodge 15:32, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article now says, "When Rehnquist was nominated for Chief Justice, the Reagan administration, like the Nixon administration, used the FBI to discredit witnesses who opposed Rehnquist’s nomination." This accusation is apparently based on a recent CNN story, which says:
"The file also indicates the two administrations enlisted the FBI's help in blunting criticism of him during confirmation hearings."
The article says nothing about "discrediting" any witnesses. Maybe some evidence of that will come out, but as of now the article merely says that the FBI was used to learn about witnesses and what they might say. As Alexander Charnes says in the article, "it's the same old story". And the article is completely vague about what it means by "blunting" witnesses. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ferrylodge (talk • contribs) 18:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC).

You missed a spot. The following is from the article in question:

Alexander Charns, a Durham, North Carolina, lawyer who received the file and has extensively researched the FBI's relationship with the court, said the new disclosures show the Nixon and Reagan administrations went to some lengths to discredit Rehnquist opponents. Jimmuldrow 19:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rehnquist suffered painkiller withdrawal, hallucinations, paranoia

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/01/04/rehnquist.files.ap/index.html?rss

This should proooooobably be included.

--Moeburn 23:05, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Moeburn. Here are the FBI files on his drug use/dependency:

http://wid.ap.org/documents/rehnquist/section1.pdf http://wid.ap.org/documents/rehnquist/section3.pdf http://wid.ap.org/documents/rehnquist/section4.pdf http://wid.ap.org/documents/rehnquist/section5.pdf http://wid.ap.org/documents/rehnquist/section6.pdf http://wid.ap.org/documents/rehnquist/section7.pdf

(According to this San Francisco Chronicle article http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/01/04/national/w134403S51.DTL&type=politics, section 2 "disappeared.") Potashnik 21:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


How many years of excessive prescription drug use coincided with what court cases? Finding out that the chief justice was high on dope while on the bench is too much. Who, if anyone, was covering for him - lots of people around him ( with all their experience with drug prosecution ) must have known or suspected that the guy was incapacitated for years. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 159.105.80.219 (talk) 11:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

tagged as currentevent202.76.188.214 13:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Category - WikiProject Lutheranism

While it seems more than appropriate to categorize Rehnquist as a "Notable Lutheran," it seems a bit much, based on what we see in this article, so far, to term him any more than another Chief Justice. Hardly material here to portray him as an especially noteworthy religious person. I've heard him speak. He was impressive, but I don't remember him "giving testimony" to his faith or anything. Anyway, how could he and not trigger calls for him impeachment based on religious bias? Student7 18:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clerking

I find the description of Renquist's term of clerking confusing with later dates thrown in when he was obliged to defend what he had written. Might I suggest for stylistic reasons that the dates and other factors be relegated to footnotes? This would shorten that paragraph a little bit and "exile" the later, sometimes confusing dates (1986, etc.) to citations. I'd do it myself but I'm afraid of losing the sense of the arguments. Student7 22:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Please go ahead and give it a try. Don't worry too much that you won't do it properly. Other editors are ready, willing, and able to criticize.  :-) Ferrylodge 22:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Okay. I've really altered this. Since Plessy seems to bother everyone, why not move it out to a separate paragraph as "controversy." My difference with the paragraph is style. We were trying to relate/sketch his background and all of the sudden, we're up to our necks in Plessy!
Another reason why I demoted the Dershowitz statement which someone may want to revive in another section. And the "smearing Jackson's good name" statement. Also, I noted that Renquist defense of himself got kind of lost in punctuation. He starts to say that his "Plessy" statement was taken out of context. Someone properly tried to italize "Plessy" and forgot to enclose the Renquist subquote in, well, subquotes. I don't even know how to do this, so I just removed the italized word Plessy.
Cleaning this up (without reversion!) ought to keep everyone busy for a few days!  :) Student7 00:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Plessy controversy: This is covered very well, I think, BUT it still seems to detract, style-wise from the flow of Renquist's life because of the flash-ahead dates. Since it arose at both hearing before Congress, it can't very well be put in perfect chronological sequence.
What does fail to emerge here is that Brown was a shock to most Americans. Stare decisis, Plessy, was overturned for essentially social reasons. Brown seems reasonable in retrospect, but it didn't seem so to most people at the time. Nor do the latter confirmation hearings seem to bring that fact out. At least not in these quotes. Student7 11:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there's a simple away to avoid the flash-ahead dates. Regarding the reasons why Plessy was overturned by Brown, I think it's best to include details about that at the respective articles for those cases, or in the articles about the justices who actually voted in Brown (Rehnquist was merely a clerk). There have recently been some big changes in this regard at the article on Robert H. Jackson, and you may want to review those big changes.Ferrylodge 14:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dershowitz comment (moved to bottom of page)

Revision as of 23:07, 4 February 2006 (edit) (undo) 69.109.194.141 (Talk)

Why should Dershowitz's unfounded and inflammatory accusations of anti-semitism be included in Rehnquist's bio?

--moved by Purkowitz 05:56, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Sweeps (on hold)

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed.

1) The article is not well cited. I placed appropriate tags. Some of the refs are simple weblinks (partially dead), but should have more detailed information.

2) Case citations are not consistent. Some of them are provided with direct links to findlaw, while others are not.

3) The lead should be expanded to 3-4 paragraphs.

4) Trivia section should be removed.

I will check back in no less than seven days. If progress is being made and issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted (such a decision may be challenged through WP:GAR). If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. Feel free to drop a message on my talk page if you have any questions, and many thanks for all the hard work that has gone into this article thus far. Regards, Ruslik 06:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Since 3 of 4 of my concerns have not been addressed I will delist this article. Ruslik 07:28, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Associate Justice Photo

Does anyone else find the photo for Rehny under Associate Justice to be disconcerting? He looks like an axe muderer...perhaps we could find a better one? Gautam Discuss 23:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clinton impeachment

It puzzeled me that the article about the Chief Justice skips his role in the Clinton impeachment trial in senate 1999.

Is there a reason for that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.227.119.54 (talk) 10:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)