[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 14]
[House]
[Pages 19691-19697]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                HONORING CHIEF JUSTICE WILLIAM REHNQUIST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kirk). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the recognition, and I rise 
this evening to discuss a man and a history on the bench, judicial 
bench, that probably will be recorded as one of the great careers in 
the legal profession in the history of the United States. I am 
referring to Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
  Today we laid to rest Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who has served 
this country and served it well for many, many years. Justice Rehnquist 
is going to be sorely missed by the citizens of this country. His 
wisdom and his leadership and his all-around ability to unite and work 
with every faction of the Supreme Court has been an inspiration to all 
of the citizens of this country.
  He served tirelessly with great wisdom, judgment, and leadership. He 
leaves behind a legacy as one of the most influential Chief Justices in 
our Nation's history; and today, in sadness, we bid him farewell, and 
we say to Justice Rehnquist, job well done.
  A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, William Rehnquist grew up in the 
nearby suburb of Shorewood. His father, the son of Swedish immigrant 
parents, worked as a paper salesman, and his mother as a multilingual 
professional translator.
  I come from a part of Texas which has a large Swedish heritage, and I 
am sure that Justice Rehnquist got his base principles established by 
that Swedish heritage that he grew up in.
  After service in World War II with the Army Air Corps from 1943 to 
1946, and with the assistance of the GI Bill, Rehnquist earned 
bachelor's and master's degrees in political science from Stanford 
University, finishing in 1948. In 1950 he received a master's degree in 
government from Harvard. Rehnquist later returned to Stanford 
University to attend law school, where he graduated first in his class 
in 1952, even ahead of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, currently serving 
on the Court. He also served as the editor of the Law Review.
  Rehnquist served as a law clerk for Associate Supreme Court Justice 
Robert Jackson both in 1951 and 1952. Following his clerkship, he 
settled in Phoenix, Arizona, where he was in private practice from 1953 
to 1969.
  In 1964 he also served as a legal advisor to the Barry Goldwater 
Presidential campaign.
  When President Nixon was elected in 1968, Rehnquist returned to 
Washington, D.C. to serve as Assistant Attorney General in the Office 
of Legal Counsel. In this position Rehnquist served as the chief legal 
counsel to the Attorney General. He served as Assistant Attorney 
General in the Office of Legal Counsel until 1971, when President Nixon 
nominated him to replace

[[Page 19692]]

John Marshall Harlan on the Supreme Court.
  During his time in the Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist authored 
countless landmark decisions and thought-provoking dissents. He 
carefully reasoned his opinions and insisted that the principle of 
federalism is an integral part of our Nation's constitutional 
structure. His opinions recognized that our government is one of 
enumerated rights and dual sovereignty, with certain functions and 
powers left to the States.
  His jurisprudence has shown that the first amendment establishment 
clause does not dictate government hostility toward religion. Rather, 
the government should act in a manner which respects our freedom to 
worship as we please, neither favoring nor disfavoring religion.
  The last 19 years have shown that Chief Justice Rehnquist was a 
terrific choice to lead the Supreme Court. Though some of his 
colleagues on the Court disagreed with him at times, there is no doubt 
that they admired his strong leadership and his likable personality and 
his ability to build a consensus. While always a forceful advocate for 
his views, the Chief Justice consistently strove for consensus on the 
Court and treated his colleagues with courtesy and respect.
  It is thanks to his personal attributes that even in an age of 5 to 4 
decisions, the Court never descended into bitter infighting. Instead, 
Justice Rehnquist led a court united by friendship, committed to the 
law and service to our country.
  One example of Chief Justice Rehnquist's commitment to the law is his 
opinion in Dickerson v. The United States. Although a long-time critic 
of Miranda v. Arizona, Rehnquist nevertheless placed his past position 
aside and wrote an opinion in Dickerson effectively affirming Miranda.
  In 1999 Justice Rehnquist lent his services to the Senate when he 
became only the second Chief Justice in history to preside over a 
Presidential impeachment in the trial of President Clinton. During that 
difficult time, with the Nation and some of its Senators locked in 
partisan struggle, the Chief Justice's very presence reminded us of the 
solemn legal duties the constitution requires of the Senate.
  A historian of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist, had 
authored three books on the history of the Court and the American legal 
system.
  As Chief Justice, Mr. Rehnquist led not only the Supreme Court but 
the entire third branch of government. In that role he was an eloquent 
advocate for a strong and independent judiciary. In his annual reports 
on the judiciary and other public pronouncements, Chief Justice 
Rehnquist championed the interest of the judicial branch, earning 
praise from judges of all jurisdictional stripes.
  At all times Chief Justice Rehnquist performed his duties of office 
with nobility and courage. Even in his recent sickness, he found the 
strength to administer the oath of office to President Bush and to 
consider the challenging cases that came before the Court.
  Peggy Noonan wrote of President Bush's inauguration, ``And the most 
poignant moment was the manful William Rehnquist, unable to wear a tie 
and making his way down the long marble steps to swear in the 
President. The continuation of democracy is made possible by such 
gallantry.''
  Our Nation is deeply indebted to William Rehnquist. Above all, the 
rule of law was paramount for Chief Justice Rehnquist. He understood 
that our government cannot survive without a judiciary that places the 
rule of law above politics.
  Justice Rehnquist has tirelessly served our Nation for the last 3 
decades, and he serves a permanent legacy as one of the great Supreme 
Court Justices. The next Chief Justice will surely have big shoes to 
fill.
  At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield as much time as he 
wishes to consume to my colleague, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Franks).
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you. We call 
you Judge Carter here in this institution. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Carter) has earned a great deal of respect in this 
institution because he is not only a man that brings judicial 
experience to this body, but he is someone that we can all trust. He is 
someone that we know has a heart that burns with patriotism, for love 
for his country, for love for his fellow human beings and just a 
commitment to human freedom.
  And I want you to know, Mr. Speaker, that it is my precious honor to 
serve with a man like Judge Carter, we call him. You know, and perhaps 
that is all too appropriate tonight as we speak of judges, because we 
talk sometimes of judges legislating from the bench. Maybe Judge Carter 
comes to this body with just the kind of experience he needs to have. 
But we are grateful that he is a man that did not legislate from the 
bench, and that he understands the difference between the judiciary and 
the legislative body.
  And with that, Mr. Speaker, I would just like to pay a few words 
tonight of tribute to a towering figure in our country, Chief Justice 
William Rehnquist.
  The era of the Rehnquist Court has come to a close, and William H. 
Rehnquist has stepped quietly into the arms of God. Chief Justice 
Rehnquist was one of America's great Chief Justices. This Nation has 
suffered a great loss with his passing, and as twilight falls upon this 
remarkable man's career, the most notable elements of his extraordinary 
legacy must not be lost to revisionist history, Mr. Speaker, because in 
his tireless defense of the United States Constitution, Chief Rehnquist 
strongly advocated for a judiciary that applies the law rather than 
legislates from the bench.
  We, as Americans, should be very grateful for our Founding Fathers 
and for the genius of the constitutional system that they left to us. 
It was a framework that protects human dignity and individual freedom 
by enforcing limits on government power. It is incumbent upon ours and 
future generations to jealously guard that precious gift bestowed upon 
us by our forebears.
  Chief Justice Rehnquist spent decades on the highest Court in the 
land acting as the Constitution's protector. He was a constitutional 
originalist, defending the process of interpretation of the law that is 
constrained by the text and the original meaning of that great 
document.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a fundamental reason why we, as a self-
governing people, so carefully put pen to paper to memorialize our 
Constitution and our laws and our great founding documents. They are 
written words that have become an agreement between the people and the 
government. We write it all down to keep a record and an understanding 
of the limits placed on government by the will of the people.

                              {time}  2115

  Chief Justice Rehnquist's efforts to advance this understanding that 
at times the Federal courts must enforce limitations on Federal power 
while recognizing the preeminent role of democratically elected 
institutions at both the State and Federal levels, Chief Justice 
Rehnquist was a valiant defender of States' rights in recognition of 
the superiority of a federalist system when governing peoples of 
divergent views, divergent faith and cultures.
  He was an influential man in leading the Court back toward the 
original intent of the Constitution after decades of abuse by a liberal 
activist Court born of the Roosevelt era and the New Deal philosophy.
  Mr. Speaker, that New Deal activist Court actually delivered such 
bizarre rulings as in Wickard v. Filburn, a ruling that a man in Ohio 
who was growing wheat in his own backyard as a means to feed his family 
and his own livestock had somehow violated the Interstate Commerce 
Clause of the United States Constitution because of the quantity of 
wheat that he grew could have actually been sold.
  Moreover, in their unanimous decision, this liberal activist Court 
affirmed, ``If we assume it is never marketed, homegrown wheat competes 
with wheat in commerce. The stimulation of commerce is a use of the 
regulatory function quite as definitive and quite as definitely as 
prohibitions or restrictions thereon.''

[[Page 19693]]

  Mr. Speaker, what a circuitous and false logic.
  The stage was then set of course by this activist Court for massive 
expansion of Federal power. Year after merciless year a liberal Supreme 
Court, drunk with self-imposed power, delivered an unprecedented 
assault upon the rights of the States and of the people.
  During his years on the court, especially his early years, Mr. 
Speaker, Justice Rehnquist was often called the lone dissenter to 
outrageous decisions, even once receiving a Lone Ranger doll awarded by 
his friends. But yet his adherence to the Constitution, faithfully 
expressed in some of his earliest dissents, had great influence upon 
the Court as evidenced in later majority opinions where he was 
vindicated in his previous conclusions.
  In 1973, when the Supreme Court illegitimately bestowed its 
imprimatur on abortion on demand, it was Justice William Rehnquist who 
wrote a scathing dissent to that majority opinion in Roe v. Wade. He 
said, ``To reach its results, the Court necessarily has had to find 
within the scope of the 14th amendment a right that was apparently 
completely unknown to the drafters of the amendment.'' How very 
eloquent.
  Chief Justice Rehnquist was also instrumental in fighting back 
assaults on religious freedom in his efforts to make clear that the 
Constitution ensures government neutrality in matters of religious 
conscience, but not the requirement to move religion altogether from 
the public square. He understood the Constitution.
  In the 1995 case of United States v. Lopez, the Rehnquist Court 
marked the first time in over 50 years, Mr. Speaker, that the Supreme 
Court upheld the rights of States, ruling against the expansion of 
Federal power and finding a Federal law in violation of that now 
woefully distorted commerce clause of the Constitution.
  Chief Justice William Rehnquist was often found standing in the 
breach of defense of the Constitution, endowing this Nation through the 
years with a noble legacy of resistance to a liberal, activist Court 
determined to make its own law and enact its own agenda.
  Mr. Speaker, he gave the American people his last full measure of 
devotion and stayed at his post through great personal pain and 
sacrifice while he was fighting cancer. To the very end, he led a brave 
and good-natured effort to restore the Supreme Court to its ethical 
grounding.
  Mr. Speaker, as we bid loving farewell to this stoic champion, I 
reflect upon the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson in tribute: ``Though 
much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength in 
which the old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are, 
one equal-temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but 
strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.''
  Mr. Speaker, when the final battle with illness and physical weakness 
came to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, he resolutely remained at 
his post for his President, for his country, and for the future of all 
mankind. He did not yield.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that very well-
presented picture of this great man that we are talking about here 
tonight.
  The gentleman is right. There was a time when William Rehnquist stood 
alone for the rule of law and a strict interpretation of the United 
States Constitution in a world where lots of people actually made jokes 
about him, that were of the other persuasion.
  To us that are conservatives and respected his intelligence, his wit, 
and his humor, and his bulldoggedness, he was someone that we respected 
and we loved because when he got ready to do his job, he did it.
  One of the things you can look at is, when your colleagues who 
disagree with you have comments that are positive about you, I think 
that speaks a lot about not only his ability to stand his ground but 
his ability to stand it with grace as a man who demanded and received 
respect because of his behavior and because of the way he handled 
himself.
  Now, Chief Justice William Brennan is well known for the way he uses 
certain language. I am going to read a quote from Justice Brennan, and 
some of it is a little rough, but I think we will enjoy it. He is 
talking about Justice Rehnquist.
  ``He is just a breath of fresh air. He is so damn personable. He lays 
his position out, casts his vote. You know exactly where he stands on 
every goddamn case. And he's meticulously fair in assigning opinions. I 
can't begin to tell you how much better all of us feel and how fond all 
of us are of him personally.'' That is a quote from Justice Brennan.
  Another of his colleagues, Justice Louis Powell said, ``In many ways 
he is the best-educated person I have ever worked with, very familiar 
with the classics. He'll quote them with confidence. Everybody agrees 
generally, I suppose, that he's brilliant, but he has a good sense of 
humor and he is very generous and he is principled.''
  Former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall said, ``Rehnquist is a 
great Chief Justice.''
  All these people were people on the other side of most of the issues 
with William Rehnquist, and yet they speak of him as a colleague that 
they highly respect and they believe he handled himself very well.
  As we are talking about colleagues that we respect, I see that we are 
joined today by the gentleman from east Texas (Mr. Gohmert) and also 
one of my judicial colleagues, coming to this august body from the 
judiciary of Texas, which is getting to be a habit for quite a bit of 
our congressmen, and we are glad to have him. I wonder if the gentleman 
would like to step up and make a statement about the Chief Justice and 
join in a colloquy about the Chief Justice.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honor to be here to 
talk about the great Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
  The gentleman knows, those of us that really believed in strict 
constructionism, that the Founders and writers of the Constitution 
meant what they said, know this to be a great man, a brilliant man. We 
do mourn in the passing of the Chief Justice, 19 years, as the 
gentleman pointed out, as the Chief Justice, 34 years as a Justice. 
That is incredible that he maintained his humility, his sense of 
purpose, his servanthood-type mentality.
  I just want to highlight some things. Under his leadership the 10th 
and 11th amendments began to have more meaning, as they were intended. 
For so long they had just been forgotten. The 10th amendment talks 
about if it is not an enumerated power, basically it is reserved to the 
people in the States.
  This is a man that had an intellect unsurpassed by anybody on the 
Court, past or present, and yet sometimes the intellect seems to get in 
the way and you cannot see the forest for the trees. He saw the words 
in simplistic brilliance. He knew they meant what they said and he said 
so.
  In Alden v. Maine, Seminole Tribe v. Florida, U.S. v. Printz, U.S. v. 
Lopez, that was one the Chief penned himself, those were cases where he 
pointed these things out.
  In the Lopez case, it is a great case, one of my favorites, it had 
the powerful language that reins in the commerce clause power that 
Congress has. And he explained that commerce clause means what it says. 
You cannot just keep reaching out and say a school is part of 
interstate commerce. That is not the intention and everybody knows it. 
And he helped rein in the Court to where it should be.
  Now, the Chief Justice wrote the 2005 opinion Van Orden v. Perry that 
allowed the State of Texas to continue to display a monument 
containing, among other things, the Ten Commandments. As I sat there 
and listened to the oral argument before the Supreme Court, and I am a 
member of the Supreme Court bar, and it was an honor and privilege to 
be sitting there, you look up and you see Moses holding the Ten 
Commandment tablets and, here they are trying to decide if it is okay 
for the State of Texas to have a monument to the Ten Commandments.
  He understood the hypocrisy. He understood how silly it was for 
people to try to be so intellectual, as a lady back

[[Page 19694]]

in Mount Pleasant where I grew up used to say, ``Some people have a 
Ph.D. but the truth is they are still P-H-U-L's. They are fools.'' But 
the Chief Justice had that kind of delightful sense of humor as well.
  In the establishment clause he framed the issue very well when he 
said, ``This case, like all establishment clause challenges, presents 
us with the difficulty of respecting both faces. Our institutions 
presuppose a Supreme Being. Yet these institutions must not press 
religious observances upon their citizens. One face looks to the past 
in acknowledgment of our Nation's heritage, while the other looks to 
the present in demanding a separation between church and State. 
Reconciling these two faces requires that we neither abdicate our 
responsibility to maintain a division between church and State nor 
evince a hostility to religion by disabling the government from, in 
some ways, recognizing our religious heritage.''
  At times, like the World War II monument where they just did not 
include the part where Roosevelt said, ``So help us God,'' like that 
was going to offend somebody, it reminds me, I had a summer in the 
Soviet Union back in college. Stalin wrote Trotsky completely out of 
the history books. That is what Chief Justice Rehnquist was saying. You 
cannot just rewrite history to suit yourself. A Supreme Being, the 
acknowledgement of God, has been part of our history, and it should not 
be ignored.
  The Chief quoted a case previously decided by the Court in 1952 
because he also believed in precedent, like we do, like we did as 
judges; that is what we are supposed to do. That has been placed as far 
back as a rule for justices to follow. He understood that just because 
something, a monument, a speech or a display, contains religious 
symbols or words, it does not mean that it violates the establishment 
clause.

                              {time}  2130

  On the sensitive issue of abortion, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Franks) pointed this out, he was steadfast. He said the States have 
that right. They have the right. So he dissented in Roe v. Wade; and 
again, he dissented in Parenthood v. Casey. It was clear to the Chief, 
he believed, that States had a right to place restrictions unless they 
were prevented from doing so by clear language of the Constitution, and 
that simply was not there.
  This same usurpation that Members of Congress just talk about daily, 
this was a man that lived it. He did not believe in usurpation of the 
State and local governments' rights.
  As I reflect on the Court and awe and reference from such a humble 
man of peace, man of life, I could not help but think about the words 
in the Declaration of Independence. We are created equal by our 
creator, but it is pretty clear a lot of us did not get this equal 
amount of common sense.
  Everybody on the Supreme Court is brilliant, some of the brightest 
minds in this country; and yet the common sense was not equally passed 
around those nine Justices. So things that made complete sense, common 
sense, were so simple that it apparently flew right by some of the 
pseudo-intellectuals. Here was a man who made the complicated simple, 
as it should have been. He is a man this country owes a great debt of 
gratitude to. He is a man that I will always have great respect for. He 
is a man that should and could be a role model for all Americans. He 
loved liberty more than self.
  He was a servant, and I thank God for Chief Justice William 
Rehnquist. I thank God for the life he lived. I thank God for the life 
he tried to make sure that others would have as well, and our thoughts 
and prayers will continue to be with his loved ones.
  I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) for giving me an 
opportunity to share in this tribute. It does weigh heavy. It is 
important that we pay tribute to such a great man.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I was thinking back. The gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gohmert) and I both served in the Texas judiciary, and I do 
not know if you were there at the time or not and if you remember. At 
one point in my 22 years on the bench this took place, but we had a 
State judicial conference. Our guest speaker was a very, very 
personable and intelligent professor of law from the University of 
Virginia. He actually was smart enough to carry two full days of 
education for judges by himself, and you have got to be pretty good to 
do that.
  In one of these sessions, he was analyzing the President's Supreme 
Court, and this was prior to Chief Justice Rehnquist becoming Chief 
Justice, when he was Justice Rehnquist, and he was talking about the 
makeup of the United States Supreme Court at that point in time.
  He started by tracking the liberals on the Court, which at that time 
was the vast majority; and he talked about their capabilities and what 
direction they wanted to take things and all this stuff. Finally he got 
down and he said those of you who are feeling very depressed because 
you do not have a liberal bend towards the law, do not lose heart 
because you have a champion, and he is equal to the task of all those 
we have just discussed put together in his ability to analyze and take 
forward his view of the United States Constitution.
  He said never sell short William Rehnquist. He knows what he is 
doing; he knows where he wants to take the law; and he will take it 
there. And believe me, as long as it is a Republican in office, he 
should and will be the next Chief Justice of the United States Supreme 
Court, and at that time he will turn the corner on many of the 
decisions which we have found to be very strange and not very well 
directed towards the trial courts and the trial courts' abilities. So 
do not lose heart. You have a champion and he is a white knight and he 
will deliver for the conservative view, the rule-of-law view of the 
Constitution.
  He certainly did. Even though he wrote dissents, sometimes those 
dissents were so telling that they moved the Court slowly. Absolutely a 
phenomenal intelligence and ability to wordsmith, to word things so 
that they led us in a direction we needed to go.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think about 
one of the last cases the Court decided under his Chief Justice 
administration, the Kelo case. He was in the dissent, and it brings to 
mind the quote, ``The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.'' He did a 
great deal. He was able to help turn the Court back toward having the 
Constitution mean what it said.
  Yet, here again, the Kelo case, he dissented. He was, as you say, 
very clear, very precise. He had Justices Scalia, Thomas, and O'Connor 
with him on that in dissenting. They all four dissented, and yet a 
majority of the Court turned around, said you know what, we are going 
back to the day of fiefdoms and kings and dukes. So whoever is better 
friends with the ones in power, well, they can just flat take land away 
from those that have, if they are going to promise to provide more 
bounty to the ones in power. Phenomenal decision, just an 
embarrassment. It should be for everyone who sits on the bench 
anywhere.
  Yet, to the very end, he maintained his integrity, he maintained his 
principle, he maintained the clarity of mind to understand not only is 
that not right, not only is that not fair, not only is that un-
American, it violates the Constitution.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, if I can reclaim my time, I noticed that the 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), our friend, has arrived in the Chamber. 
I would really like to hear what he has to say about Justice Rehnquist. 
So I yield to our colleague and good friend from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. It is an honor 
for me to stand on the floor here with two of the three judges that we 
have from Texas to help guide us down through this constitutional path 
and my good friend, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks), who is a 
pure constitutionalist and whom I have the honor to serve on the 
Subcommittee on the Constitution with.
  I have a lot of things to say about Chief Justice Rehnquist, and it 
is an honor for me to have an opportunity to

[[Page 19695]]

say a few words here, but I would like to first start by recapping some 
of his life. That is a life just so well-lived and so impressive to see 
what he has done and how he put it together piece by piece, almost 
without flaw.
  Looking back through that life, we know that we have lost a great 
public servant just last Saturday, and it happened in the middle of the 
disaster down in the gulf coast. So some of the media was swamped by 
those current events, and this happened underneath that shell in a way 
that we need to raise this up and commemorate this man's life in a 
special way.
  He was just a month short of his 81st birthday. He battled cancer 
that eventually took his life, but he battled it with the same 
determination that he battled for principles that we all here hold so 
dear.
  The Chief Justice awed the Nation by never giving up, and he never 
retired. He continued his service to our Nation until the very end. He 
was consistent with his lifetime of service, and he also was consistent 
with the vision of the Founding Fathers in that these Justices would be 
appointed for life. They were expected to serve for life or until 
retirement. He served a full, full lifetime for this country and 33 
years, and he was consistent and true to his principles all the way 
through. He was a noble and honorable American who was part of the 
Greatest Generation. Examining his lifetime and career gives us insight 
into this powerful figure.
  He devoted the majority of his life to serving this country in 
numerous capacities, and I take you back to 1943 to 1946 where he 
served in the U.S. Army Air Corps, and there is no question he had an 
incredibly deep intelligence.
  He attended top schools, earning numerous advanced degrees, and was 
consistently at the top of his class, and unquestionably served as a 
model for his fellow students.
  He received a BA and an MA in political science from Stanford and 
another master's in government from Harvard. He graduated first in his 
class from Stanford in 1952, just two places ahead of Justice Sandra 
Day O'Connor. He served as a law clerk for Justice Robert Jackson on 
the Supreme Court of the United States in the 1951 and 1952 terms and 
practiced law in Phoenix, AZ, from 1953 until 1969.
  He served as Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal 
Counsel from 1969 until 1971. As Assistant Attorney General for the 
Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, it was one of his primary 
functions to screen potential Supreme Court candidates.
  When Justice John Marshall Harlan retired, a search went out for a 
replacement, and Attorney General John Mitchell, who many of us 
remember, he was Rehnquist's boss at the time, announced he had found 
someone suitable for the job. That person was Justice Rehnquist whom 
Nixon appointed to the Court. So at the tender age of 47, which at that 
time was a young age for those appointments, and at this time as well, 
he was confirmed as Associate Justice on December 10, 1971, by a vote 
of 68 to 26. I can only imagine there are 26 votes out there that would 
like to have the opportunity to reconsider that vote.
  His first day on the job was January 7, 1972. He served on the 
Nation's highest court throughout seven Presidencies. In 1986, Chief 
Justice Warren Burger retired, and President Reagan nominated Justice 
Rehnquist through to the reins of the Court as Chief Justice. There was 
a confirmation debate and deliberation that ensued. He was confirmed as 
Chief Justice on September 17, 1986, by a vote of 65 to 33, another 33 
that I believe would like to have a chance to reconsider that vote in 
light of the historical 33 years of service of Chief Justice Rehnquist.
  We have gotten to know a little bit more about him in the last few 
days. His management style, his effort to be fair, to be a giving and 
forgiving boss, but one that was also a task master. As a result he was 
able to form a cohesive Supreme Court body. Even though they had a lot 
of different personalities and a lot of different kinds of common sense 
they brought to their jurisprudence, Justice Rehnquist pulled them 
together. He left quite a legacy.
  In elementary school, he was asked about his career plans by his 
teacher, and what I think is one of the best prophesies I have heard of 
a career in some time, he replied, ``I'm going to change the 
government.'' Now some people say, I am going to change the government, 
they mean they are going to grow government or they are going to adapt 
government in light of modern contemporary values.
  Chief Justice Rehnquist did change the government. He fought a rear 
guard action to preserve our Constitution, the text of the 
Constitution. He was a constitutionalist. He was a model of judicial 
restraint. He stayed true to the principle and the paramount principle 
which is strict construction. No matter what path the other members of 
the Court took, at the beginning of his career on the Supreme Court, 
Justice Rehnquist was often a dissenter on a Court filled with judicial 
activists. He held firm to the guidance that the Constitution itself 
provides and was eventually joined by allies who helped him hold on to 
some of the meaning of our Constitution's text.
  He led the Court in preserving States' rights, which was referenced 
here, and I appreciate that discussion; but it started with U.S. v. 
Lopez, which struck down a Federal law banning guns near local schools. 
Now I approve of the policy, but I more approve of his constitutional 
decision in dissenting from the Congress's policy. In U.S. v. Morrison, 
which struck down substantial parts of the Violence Against Women Act, 
again something, a policy, that I approved of, but a constitutional 
decision that I agreed with, and I appreciate that restraint.
  He was not yet there on the Court when Griswold v. Connecticut in 
1965 established a right to privacy. I wish he had been there on that 
day because that was the day that the Court turned to an extreme 
activist Court, established this right to privacy that had never been 
found in the Constitution before. It was discovered in the emanations 
and penumbras of the Constitution, meaning that we laypersons could not 
divine that. In fact, maybe some of the judges here could not have 
found that right in the Constitution either.
  He was a staunch defender of the right to life. He authored Rust v. 
Sullivan, where the government can withhold funds from clinics that 
advocate abortion. He strongly dissented in Roe v. Wade; Planned 
Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade; and in Stenberg v. 
Carrhart, which was the constitutional decision that found a right to 
partial birth abortion. Justice Rehnquist held the line against that. 
He needed more help on the Court. Most every day he was there he needed 
more help on the Court. He firmly rejected the extra constitutional 
right to privacy that his colleagues created.

                              {time}  2145

  Chief Justice Rehnquist also did something many shy away from today. 
He recognized that the free exercise clause of the first amendment is 
just as important as the establishment clause.
  He authored the 2002 case that upheld school vouchers in Zelman v. 
Simmons-Harris, and strongly dissented in the 2000 case that held that 
public schools could not allow organized prayer at sporting events, 
even if the speaker is a student, and that was Santa Fe Independent 
School District v. Doe.
  He joined the majority in Agostini v. Felton in 1987, which allowed 
public school teachers to provide remedial education in parochial 
schools.
  Rehnquist dissented from the Court's 1985 decision that moments of 
silence in public schools are unconstitutional. That was Wallace v. 
Jaffree.
  And in 2003, he strongly dissented in the Court's affirmative action 
cases, Strutter and Gratz, which we remember.
  And I sat in on those cases and I remember watching him sitting on 
the bench as he deliberated on those presentations and oral arguments. 
He condemned the racial preference policies as a sham and a naked 
effort to achieve racial balancing. His position in 2003 matched that 
of the majority he joined in the 1978 Bakke case, which held that 
Federal law does not permit a university's consideration of race in 
admissions.

[[Page 19696]]

  He was consistent from 1978 until 2003. He was consistent until the 
last day of his life. Justice Rehnquist opposed the reading of ``public 
use'' as being substituted for ``public benefit'' in this summer's Kelo 
eminent domain decision, which we have had much discussion about here 
on the floor of this Congress. And I think all of us have engaged in 
that. He argued the fifth amendment means what it says.
  And I would support that statement that those 12 words in the fifth 
amendment of the Constitution, ``nor shall private property be taken 
for a public use without just compensation,'' are some of the clearest 
and cleanest words that we have in the entire Constitution, yet the 
majority of the Court, with Justice Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor 
dissenting, held otherwise. I do not believe that the fifth amendment 
could be written more precisely, more concisely, and I would challenge 
the attorneys that we have across this country to write that better 
than it has been written.
  Both the personal and case histories I have discussed here show that 
Chief Justice Rehnquist, whose passing we mourn, whose legacy we 
celebrate tonight, was a man of great principle and honor. I firmly 
believe that without Chief Justice Rehnquist's presence on the Court 
for the last 33 years, our Constitution would be unrecognizable. It is 
to him that we owe our deepest thanks for preserving our Constitution 
for future Americans to fully restore to its original text.
  I would say that there was a time in my life when I had the privilege 
and honor to sit in the presence of this great man. I am not going to 
pose the question here into this Record tonight, but I posed a question 
to Justice Rehnquist that caused him to deliberate for quite some time, 
and he finally answered, ``I am going to elect not to answer that 
question.'' Now, I do not believe he elected not to answer the question 
because he did not know the answer. I believed he elected not to answer 
the question because of how the answer would reflect on the other 
members of the Court.
  He had an ability to do a calculation on a question or a problem and 
boil it down to the root quicker than anyone that I have watched 
process these heavy legal questions.
  He was a giant of a man. He lived a life that was well lived, and we 
are here to celebrate tonight and give great honor to a man who hung on 
to this Constitution as dearly and as strongly as anyone has been 
charged with when they take the oath to uphold this Constitution.
  It has been an honor to be a citizen of this country for the 33 years 
that he has served us so well. It has been an honor to have worked with 
him, to have been in his presence, and to deliberate with him on those 
occasions, and an honor to be in the courtroom to hear the oral 
arguments and an honor to read the opinions that he has given us. He 
has left us a legacy.
  He has also left us a duty and a responsibility to pick up this ball 
now, and where he has held onto this Constitution, it is our job to 
carry forward and reestablish the text of this Constitution that he 
held so dear, and that we all hold so dear.
  Our prayers go out to the family. Our prayers of gratitude for the 
lifetime, the legacy of Chief Justice William Rehnquist will continue 
into the future.
  As I say, it has been an honor to be serving in this government with 
a man like that, and I hope and pray that we will be able to carry on 
the legacy that he left for us.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments, and 
I was thinking as he was speaking, and he gave an excellent 
presentation of the Chief Justice, but we are joined here in the 
Chamber today by two men who basically made their entire life a part of 
dealing in the justice system both as members of the bar, members of 
the bench, and who also built, basically from scratch, from what I know 
of both of them, very successful businesses, overcoming insurmountable 
obstacles. And then, when they had the ability to continue to go out 
and make those businesses thrive, they volunteered to come to 
Washington and become a part of the justice system, a part of the 
legislative branch of our government. This kind of defines the kind of 
man that Justice Rehnquist personally reached out to, kind of 
everybody.
  He wrote the opinions of those of us who honor our heritage, who 
honor the language that our forefathers wrote into the Constitution and 
think that if that is what it says, that is what it says. It does not 
take a genius to read the paper and say that is what it says. And with 
all his skill and writing ability, really you can cut it down to the 
fact that that is the way he looked at it. He said, Wait a minute, let 
us read the Constitution. That is what it says. It speaks volumes that 
Justice Rehnquist was able to do that in such a talented manner and in 
such a manner that challenged legal scholars across the country.
  One of his opponents from Harvard University made a comment about 
him, something to the effect that no matter what you thought of him, 
whether you agreed with his ideology, he said, I have to give Rehnquist 
an A. That is the kind of talent that he had. He could take the causes 
that those of us working in the trenches, the trial judges, and we 
liked to say there is a difference between trial judges and appellate 
judges. We shoot from the hip and make those decisions and then they 
get to grade our papers. Of course, Judge Gohmert has been both, so he 
has experience in both those areas, but I am just an old trial judge.
  Mr. GOHMERT. If the gentleman will yield, I might just say that it is 
easier to grade papers after people have shot from the hip.
  Mr. CARTER. Well, at least you know they are shooting from the hip.
  Mr. GOHMERT. But we all loved, I think, his simplicity. Even towards 
the end of this great man's life, I remember seeing on television the 
reporters all after him, asking are you going to resign or are you 
going to retire? And he came back, this man of brilliance yet 
simplicity, and said, It is for me to know and for you to find out. 
That is the kind of man he was even to the end, cute, humble, and a lot 
of fun.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, if the judges would yield, there is 
another anecdote that is worth mentioning, and I do not know if it has 
been passed along here tonight, but I think it demonstrates his sense 
of humor. And sometimes it was self-deprecating and sometimes it was 
succinct.
  Several years after he had been appointed to the bench, he was asked 
what it is like to serve here on the Supreme Court. He said, Well, you 
spend the first 2 years here wondering how you got here, and the rest 
of your time wondering how they got here.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for sharing that, and 
I now yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks).
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I think my primary reason for 
being here tonight was just to not let this man's towering contribution 
to the judicial process slip away into history. There is an old quote 
by Dostoevski. He said, ``He who controls the present, controls the 
past. And he who controls the past, controls the future.''
  Of course, as somebody was saying, there are a lot of revisionists 
out there trying to rewrite history in order to affect the future, but 
this man's history is very important to our country. I will make a 
prediction tonight that a lot of the decisions, where he found himself 
in dissent, in the next 20 or 30 years will turn in the other 
direction, and we will see that this man was before his time.
  There is a saying that if you fail without succeeding, if you 
struggle without succeeding, it is so someone else might succeed after 
you. And if you succeed without struggling, which I think some of our 
modern-day justices are going to do, it is because someone has 
struggled and succeeded before you. This man, I believe, is going to be 
vindicated in society, because he did not find a lot of these hidden 
things that the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) talked about.
  We have seen judges say that somehow the words in the Pledge of 
Allegiance, ``under God,'' might be unconstitutional; or that it is 
unconstitutional to protect a 9-year-old girl from

[[Page 19697]]

Internet pornography, or it is unconstitutional to protect an unborn 
child from partial-birth abortion. With regard to all of these insane 
notions, he did not see them.
  One woman said, Maybe these judges who find all these things ought to 
be out looking for Osama bin Laden if they are that good at finding 
things that are not there.
  This judge saw the Constitution for what it was. He did not try to 
make a new revolution. He simply tried to affirm the one we already 
had. I think that tonight we celebrate the life of a man that many 
justices of the future will stand on his shoulders and look back and 
say, you know, Judge Rehnquist was right, Justice Rehnquist was 
correct.
  The ship of state turns slowly sometimes, but this man had his hand 
on the rudder long before the rest of us even knew. And I again just 
wanted to join with all of my colleagues and honor this man's life.
  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments, and 
let me say this. As we discuss Chief Justice Rehnquist and what he has 
accomplished and the legacy he brings to the United States of America, 
we are doing this on the very eve of the beginning of the new selection 
of a Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. It is, I think, 
appropriate to realize that as Judge Rehnquist was serving 33 years on 
the highest court in this land, he also was writing history books to 
record history.
  He knew just what my colleague said, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Franks), that it is important that we remember the history as it was, 
not revise it to make it what we want it to be. So he wrote three 
history books about the Court so we could say, Well, what does history 
tell us about that event at that time? And so the judge, the great 
researcher, has given us the research and a direction on the history as 
it pertains to the Court, something the other justices of the Court 
that will follow can turn to as additional information to get a picture 
of where the Court was coming from as it made rulings.
  It is very important, and I hope our colleagues in the Senate, as 
they look at the confirmation of Judge Roberts, I hope that they are 
looking at the history of the United States Supreme Court and the 
legacy of William Rehnquist.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, there is a point that comes to mind, 
and I can get it quickly made. This right to privacy that was in the 
emanation's penumbras, in the shadows, was something that was never 
recognized by Chief Justice Rehnquist. That right to privacy will be 
presented to Judge Roberts, and he will be asked. In fact, he will be 
demanded to recognize that right to privacy as a condition of his 
confirmation over in the Senate, a very right to privacy that Chief 
Justice Rehnquist never recognized.
  That is how they are going to try to amend the Constitution and the 
confirmation process over in the Senate. I think it is important to 
recognize that the legacy of Justice Rehnquist should be preserved in 
the confirmation process in the Senate as well.
  Mr. CARTER. I wonder how you can be unqualified to serve by not 
recognizing that right, when there are members sitting on the Court at 
this time who do not recognize that right.
  The point of a Supreme Court is that there are multiple points of 
view, and you should not be requiring only one point of view on the 
United States Supreme Court. To make a confirmation hearing dependent 
upon one point of view absolutely flies in the face of justice in 
America.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciated hearing from my colleague 
from Iowa regarding his saying in elementary school that he wanted to 
change the government. I think about the example of the emperor who had 
no clothes, yet all the crowd got swept up in seeing clothes that were 
not there and saying, Oh, are the clothes not beautiful? They were not 
there. Chief Justice Rehnquist was one of those if he had to stand 
alone and say they are not there, there are no clothes, he did it.
  Just in conclusion, I think about the end of Frost's poem: Two roads 
diverged in the woods for Chief Justice Rehnquist many years ago, and 
he took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. 
It has, in fact, changed a Nation for the good.

                              {time}  2200

  Mr. CARTER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman. 
One of the downfalls of appearing in the Congress with the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) 
and the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is these guys are great in 
quoting all these things off the top of their head, and that is hard 
for an old trial judge who is just used to shooting from the hip. I do 
enjoy the wonderful quotes these guys pull out and quote them right. It 
is a blessing to have them as Members of our Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, you have been very patient today as we honor our passing 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, as we laid him to rest today. We 
thank you for your patience in allowing us to express our opinions 
about him.

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