Russ Feingold: “today we mourn Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who faithfully served the Supreme Court and our Nation for 33…”

“today we mourn Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who faithfully served the Supreme Court and our Nation for 33 years--19 of them as Chief Justice. That tenure made him the fourth- longest serving Chief Justice in the history of our Nation, surpassed only by Chief Justices Melville Weston Fuller, Roger B. Taney, and John Marshall. He was also the fifth longest serving Justice in our history. Walter Dellinger, former acting Solicitor General in the Clinton administration, has suggested that Chief Justice Rehnquist will be judged by history as one of the three most influential Chief Justices, together with Marshall and Chief Justice Earl Warren. We have truly lost a historic figure. It is with pride, then, that we in Wisconsin claim Justice Rehnquist as a native son. He was born in our State, and Wisconsin was his first home. He grew up in Shorewood, a suburb of Milwaukee, and graduated from Shorewood High School in 1942. Wisconsin must have provided a good foundation for his future; he went on to graduate first in his class from Stanford Law School and to clerk for former Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, another of the great jurists of the 20th century. I have deep respect for this son of Wisconsin, although I did not always agree with his substantive legal views. Indeed, we are hearing praise for Justice Rehnquist from across the political and legal spectrum.…”