HR0622 94TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0622 LRB094 14136 HSS 49035 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, William Hubbs Rehnquist was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 1, 1924, the son of William Benjamin Rehnquist, a paper salesman, and Margery Peck Rehnquist, a translator and homemaker; and

WHEREAS, After graduating from Shorewood High School in 1942, Mr. Rehnquist attended Kenyon College for one quarter in the fall of 1942 before entering the U.S. Army Air Corps; and

WHEREAS, Mr. Rehnquist served in World War II from March of 1943 to 1946; he was placed into a pre-meteorology program and was assigned to Denison University until February of 1944, when the program was shut down; and

WHEREAS, The program was designed to teach maintenance and repair of weather instruments; in the summer of 1945, Mr. Rehnquist went overseas and served as a weather observer in North Africa; and

WHEREAS, After the war ended, Mr. Rehnquist attended Stanford University under the G.I. Bill; in 1948, he received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in political science, and in 1950, he went to Harvard University, where he received a master's degree in government; he returned later to Stanford University, where he attended law school, graduating first in his class; and

WHEREAS, Mr. Rehnquist went to Washington, D.C., to work as a law clerk for Justice Robert H. Jackson during the court's 1951-1952 terms; and

WHEREAS, Mr. Rehnquist moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he was in private practice from 1953 to 1969; during these years, he was active in the Republican Party and served as a legal advisor to Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign; and

WHEREAS, Mr. Rehnquist served as Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel from 1969 to 1971; in this role, he served as the chief lawyer to Attorney General John Mitchell; and

WHEREAS, In 1971, President Richard M. Nixon nominated Mr. Rehnquist to replace John Marshall Harlan II on the Supreme Court; upon Harlan's retirement, and after being confirmed by the Senate by a 68-26 vote on December 10, 1971, Mr. Rehnquist took his seat as an Associate Justice on January 7, 1972; and

WHEREAS, When Chief Justice Warren Burger retired in 1986, President Ronald Reagan nominated Associate Justice Rehnquist to fill the position of Chief Justice; he was confirmed by the Senate by a 65-33 vote and assumed the office on September 26; and

WHEREAS, On October 26, 2004, the Supreme Court announced that Chief Justice Rehnquist had recently been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and that he had been hospitalized at the National Naval Medical Center in Maryland; and

WHEREAS, Chief Justice Rehnquist, after months of battling his condition, finally succumbed at his Arlington, Virginia, home on September 3, 2005, at the age of 80; and

WHEREAS, He is survived by his three children with his late wife, Natalie Cornell, James, Janet, and Nancy; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we celebrate and remember the extraordinary life of Chief Justice William Hubbs Rehnquist; and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be presented to Chief Justice Rehnquist's three surviving children with our deepest sympathies and highest regards.