William Hubbs Rehnquist (1924–) was appointed an associate justice of the Supreme Court by President Nixon in 1972, largely because of his impeccable conservative record. He used his years in the Court before he was elevated to chief justice by President Reagan in 1986 to demonstrate his conservative views, extraordinary intellect and collegiality. Throughout his tenure at the Court he has maintained his commitment to supporting state sovereignty over federal power, interpreting state authority to regulate individuals expansively constraining the power of the federal courts to review state criminal-law convictions, curtailing the constitutional protections granted criminal defendants by the Warren Court, limiting affirmative action and eliminating the privacy right of women to choose abortion.

Rehnquist’s judicial philosophy took hold on the Court in the 1980s, when a conservative majority emerged following Reagan and Bush appointments. Rather than exercising judicial restraint, as many conservative justices profess, the Rehnquist Court has practiced a conservative-oriented judicial activism that has successfully continued the process, begun in the Court under Warren Burger, of limiting the impact of precedents from the more liberal era of the Warren Court while not explicitly overruling most of them. The Rehnquist Court welcomes cases brought by groups seeking to promote conservative agendas, such as the Washington Legal Foundation, while those pursuing progressive causes are increasingly relegated to state courts where they often find more receptive judicial audiences.