Rehnquist's Legacy: A Partisan Court

[struggle4progress]

<snip> When the chips were down for Republican leaders – from George H.W. Bush on the Iran-Contra scandal to George W. Bush in Election 2000 – Rehnquist worked behind the scenes with other right-wing judges to make the federal courts the GOP’s last line of defense. In doing so, these jurists made a mockery of their sworn duty to enforce the law impartially and to protect the Constitution. <snip>

In the 1960s, Rehnquist opposed desegregation in Phoenix and worked on Republican “ballot security,” a program allegedly designed to intimidate African-American and other minority voters.

According to a Senate summary of the opposition to Rehnquist's 1986 nomination to be chief justice, Rehnquist “publicly opposed a Phoenix public accommodations ordinance, and he publicly challenged a plan to end school segregation in Phoenix, stating that ‘we are no more dedicated to an integrated society than a segregated society.’”

The Senate summary added that “in the early 1960s, he led a Republican Party ballot security program designed to disenfranchise minority voters. The Committee has received sworn testimony from numerous credible witnesses that, as part of his involvement in the ballot security program, Mr. Rehnquist personally challenged the eligibility of minority voters. Justice Rehnquist has categorically denied this. But none of these witnesses had anything to gain by misrepresenting the truth.” <snip>

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/090705.html