Worst American birthdays: William Rehnquist

Yesterday I wrote about the direct line of continuity [1] between the people who kept black kids out of Little Rock Central High and today's conservative movement. The point: the conservative movement hasn't fallen from some Goldwater Era high, but has dwelled in the same moral sewer all the way down the line.

I'd like to continue the history lesson today, inspired by my friends at Lawyers, Guns, and Money [2] and their series of "Worst American Birthdays." Today they honor the late William Rehnquist, and, superlatively as ever [3], they hit two of the important high notes from his pre-Supreme Court career: Rehnquist's astonishing memo as a young clerk arguing that the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson "separate but equal" decision was “right and should be reaffirmed"; and his work in Arizona Republican Party in the early 1960s suppressing black voting rights.

They mention Rehnquist's work for Richard Nixon's Justice Department, but I'd like to specify some of the highlights.

There was the time, on May 1, 1969, he gave a "Law Day" address to a Kiwanis Club in Newark—more or less the nation's capital of right-wing vigilante violence at the time—calling anti-war demonstrators the "new barbarians," [3] and said that "if force or the threat of force is required in order to enforce the law, we must not shirk from its employment." He had been tapped to write memos on the Army's role in spying on protesters, an act in which he concluded they "may assist," and that "I do not believe it violate teh particular constitutional rights of the individuals who are surveyed."(The Army soon had 1000 undercover agents in 300 offices nationwide compiling dossiers on groups like the NAACP, ACLU, and Southern Christian Leadership Conference.) [4]

Early in 1970 he was asked to write speeches for Judiciary Committee conservatives in favor of the nomination of the mediocre federal judge G. Harrold Carswell. That much is on the record, discovered by Stanley Kutler for his classic book The Wars of Watergate [5]. What we'll probably never know is if he penned those immortal words from Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska, "There are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance?" and the lesser-known, anti-Semitic filip that followed: "We can't have all Brandeises and Cardozos and Frankfurters and all stuff like that there." The next year he provided legal cover for the mass arrests of demonstrators via the novel doctrine of "qualified martial law" [6]; told a worried Senator Sam Ervin, on behalf of President Nixon, that "self discipline on the part of the Executive Branch will provide an answer to virtually all of the legitimate complaints against excesses of information gathering"; and that domestic insurrections should be put down "at whatever cost in individual liberties and rights." [7]

Then he was nominated to the Supreme Court.

Happy birthday!