October 15, 2012
A. Jenkins, editor of CQ Press and a veteran legal journalist, traces the life of William Rehnquist (1924â2005), who was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 by President Nixon and became chief justice in 1986. As Jenkins underscores, Rehnquist's years as chief justice were characterized by a markedly conservative shift in Supreme Court jurisprudence. Jenkins takes the view that Rehnquist was an ideologue rather than a legal scholar and theorist, it his "expedient and unyielding conservatism" most apparent in his view that federalism, the balance between the states and the federal government, had "revolutionary potential" â as potential the authorhe says, has been realized in chief justice Roberts's court. And while Jenkins is an informed and balanced commentator on the politics surrounding presidential appointments to the Court, Rehnquist's legal legacy, and relationships among the justices, he is equally interested in Rehnquist the manâhis character, his predilections, his demons. Jenkins offers a mixed but often unflattering view of Rehnquist. There are also revelations for those who have not been Court cognoscenti, foremost among them Rehnquist's long battle with an addiction to prescription pain-killers. In an accessible and satisfying biography, Jenkins finds the right balance between the law and the man, the legal and the human. Agemt: Jane Dystel, Dystel and Goderich Literary Management.
September 1, 2012
A much-awarded legal journalist serves up an investigative biography of the controversial, late chief justice. Famously distrustful of the press, William Rehnquist (1924-2005) divulged little about himself during his three decades on the nation's highest court. CQ Press president and publisher Jenkins (Ladies' Man: The Life and Trials of Marvin Mitchelson, 1992, etc.) uncovers some nuggets about the private man, some amusing--he loved making small wagers on almost any proposition; he drafted a novel repeatedly rejected by publishers--some startling--during the early 1980s "he was desperately, abusively addicted to prescription pain killers." The author credits Rehnquist with high intelligence and good humor and persuasively argues that his temperament most closely resembled his ideological counterpart, the iconoclastic William O. Douglas. He uncovers the origins of Rehnquist's conservatism and explores his law school career, his clerkship under Robert Jackson, his rise in the Goldwater and his tenure in the Mitchell Justice Department under Nixon. But when he turns to Rehnquist's jurisprudence, Jenkins unrelentingly scorns the man he blames for the court's current politicization. He flays Rehnquist as an unprincipled conservative who looked first to the desired result and only then to the reasoning, who valued efficiency over justice, who ignored precedent, who favored broad governmental power over civil rights, who lacked any "consistent constitutional theory" save for his own consistently "reactionary ideology." Many of our laws later conformed to the famously lone dissents of Rehnquist's early career, but Jenkins attributes this not to the chief's leadership, but rather to the court's changing composition. As with many court commentators, Jenkins equates "maturation" or "growth" with change, almost always a change from right to left. That Rehnquist "could not evolve," the author takes as a huge black mark against the man who "made it respectable to be an expedient conservative on the Court." The Rehnquist legacy harshly gaveled down.
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October 1, 2012
Jenkins (president & publisher, CQ Press) has written a brief but well-researched biography of William Rehnquist, former chief justice of the Supreme Court. Not a comprehensive story of the chief justice's decisions, the book explores Rehnquist's conservative values and how his views shaped his career. Jenkins explores Rehnquist's life by placing it in historical context. Rehnquist was exposed to politics from an early age by his parents, who were ardent Republicans. After serving in the military during World War II, he attended Stanford Law School. Rehnquist then began his career as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Henry Jackson. The book is most interesting when it discusses Rehnquist's career path, including an inside look at the Nixon White House where he worked as a deputy attorney general. VERDICT Rehnquist never completed a memoir, and his personal life is largely unknown to the public. Not only the story of the justice's life and career, this book is also a portrait of 20th-century American politics. Recommended for readers interested in the Supreme Court and U.S. politics.--Becky Kennedy, Atlanta-Fulton P.L., GA
Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
October 15, 2012
In 1985, Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist sat for an in-depth interview with Jenkins for a profile in the New York Times Magazine. Famous for his distrust of the press, it was Rehnquist's last such interview. On his death, in 2005, Rehnquist left no memoir and until now there's been no biography. Drawing on journals Rehnquist kept and records at the Rehnquist Library at Stanford University, Jenkins offers the first full look at the career of the justice, who advanced conservative ideals above individual rights from the time he came on the court, in 1972, until his death. His legacy continues through his successor and former clerk, John Roberts. Jenkins details Rehnquist's libertarianism, involvement with Goldwater Republicans, and path to having President Nixon appoint him to the Supreme Court with the expectation that Rehnquist would steer the court rightward. Jenkins illuminates both the human side of Rehnquist, his parsimony and addiction to prescription painkillers, and his judicial philosophy, which generated little in the way of law but which supported a strong conservative court agenda for 33 years.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)