ABSTRACT
William Hubbs Rehnquist, the sixteenth chief justice of the US Supreme Court, was first appointed to the US Supreme Court as an associate justice by President Richard Nixon in 1972 and was elevated to the position of chief justice by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Chief Justice Rehnquist has brought concern for federalism back into the mainstream of judicial thinking, and he has been an able judicial administrator, both modernizing the Court and facilitating good working relationships among justices with diverse views. Rehnquist grew up in a solid Republican household in an upper-middle-class suburb of Milwaukee. In 1969, President Nixon appointed Rehnquist as assistant attorney general of legal counsel in the Department of Justice. Rehnquist has sided with the claim that the First Amendment right of private groups to associate sometimes overrides laws designed to provide equal protection to minorities.
