The Partisan:
The Life of William Rehnquist
The New York Times Book Review--Editor's Choice
Rehnquist’s greatest influence was as a model for a new breed of ideological justices, this judicious narrative argues. See the listing
The New York Times Book Review
Rehnquist’s struggle to reshape American law in his and Nixon’s image is the central story line of John A. Jenkins’s engaging and perceptive biography, “The Partisan.” On a court in which justices often evolve away from the views they arrived with, Rehnquist was for years a conservative North Star. In the end, however, he never achieved his legal counterrevolution, because of a combination of being too fixed in his beliefs and, ultimately, not fixed enough. Continue reading...
NPR
In an October 24, 2024 episode, NPR explores voting rights in battleground states in advance of the 2024 presidential election. John joins the conversation to speak about William Rehnquist's background and politics, and gives context for Rehnquist's alleged engagement in voter intimidation in the Arizona in the 1960's. The Swing State Power Brokers
The Los Angeles Times
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was a curious man. He could be courtly and gracious, elegant in argument and a brilliant advocate. He also was a ferocious adversary, a relentless conservative and, as John A. Jenkins makes clear in his new biography, a determined partisan. Continue reading...
The Washington Post
“I’m going to change the government,” vowed William H. Rehnquist. He made this promise not to President Richard Nixon, who appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1971, nor to President Ronald Reagan, who elevated him to the chief justiceship in 1986, but to his elementary school class in Shorewood, Wis., back in the 1930s. Rehnquist’s ambitions were already set — as were his ideology and sense of certitude. Young Bill harbored a deep hostility to governmental power and was determined to do something about it. Continue reading...
CNN
His life story is little known to the public, but now the first full biography of the Wisconsin native reveals a complex, intelligent, and conservative man. "The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist" (PublicAffairs Books) was written by John A. Jenkins, a journalist and longtime executive at CQ Press. The thoroughly researched account is based in part on a lengthy profile from 1984 by Jenkins, who conducted the last major interview given by the private Rehnquist. Continue reading...
Slate
William Hubbs Rehnquist was an enigma wrapped in a riddle, according to John A. Jenkins’ new biography, The Partisan. An enigma wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in an orange tie, wrapped in a drug-induced stupor, then wrapped yet again in a hard racist shell. And, as Jenkins tells it, beneath all that packaging there lay a pulsing heart of pure, ends-driven evil. Continue reading...
The Wall Street Journal
Though it may not be cheered by Rehnquist fans, “The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist” (PublicAffairs) is no quick hit job. Mr. Jenkins and his research assistants poured through Rehnquist archives and the papers of other justices to illuminate some little-known corners of Chief Justice Rehnquist’s life. The jurist, who joined the Supreme Court in 1971 and served as chief justice from 1986 until his death in 2005, disliked the press and didn’t write his own memoirs, and he hasn’t been the subject of a full biography until now. Continue reading...
The New York Journal of Books
“The strength of this book: The author focuses on the man and does not get mired in cases.”
In his biography of William Rehnquist, John A. Jenkins ably introduces us to “the man.” Since there is no memoir (but many journals) it fell to an outsider to tell the world just who he was, and how he changed the direction of the Court after the Warren/Burger years. Continue reading...
Publishers Weekly
John A. Jenkins, editor of CQ Press and a veteran legal journalist, traces the life of William Rehnquist (1924–2005), 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" –a potential, the author says, has been realized in chief justice Roberts's court. Continue reading…
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
In researching and writing The Partisan, John Jenkins went to Stanford University to look at Chief Justice Rehnquist’s papers, which had been banished there to make them harder to find. Rehnquist was such a private man he granted one interview in his life in 1984, to Jenkins. More interesting to me was the fact Jenkins also went through Nixon White House tapes and found Nixon’s machinations in filling the four SCOTUS vacancies that occurred in 1969–71. Continue reading...
Washington Lawyer
Rehnquist was a person of contradictions. He led Court employees in Christmas caroling, was addicted to poker gatherings and office pools, and would throw his head back in a broad, toothy laugh. Yet Jenkins, examining Rehnquist like some Hamlet fingering the skull of Yorick, writes that behind that “public mask of jollity” was a “brooding private man,” a “chameleon,” who never relented in his iconoclastic, partisan’s mission to imbue the Court with a deep conservatism favoring government power over individual rights. What made Rehnquist tick? Jenkins, who did a remarkable—and rare—interview with the justice in a 1985 profile in The New York Times Magazine, provides a tantalizing clue. Continue reading...
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
In a bracing introduction to his book "The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist" (PublicAffairs), Jenkins writes that "Rehnquist's judicial philosophy was nihilistic at its core, disrespectful of precedent and dismissive of social, economic and political institutions that did not comport with his black-and-white view of the world."
The book - billed as the first full biography of the conservative jurist who died in 2005 - is sure to incite passions among both conservative and liberal court watchers. Continue reading...
Maricopa Lawyer
"Offers up a highly-readable, penetrating, and challenging re-examination of the U.S. Supreme Court's sixteenth chief justice and succeeds with its concise summarizations.... In the process, Jenkins takes the reader to the doorway of a deeply profound question on how America's Constitution works...." Continue reading...
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BookTV After Words: John Jenkins, "The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist" Part 1
BookTV After Words: John Jenkins, "The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist" Part 2
Fox News interview-William Rehnquist's rise to the Supreme Court: John A. Jenkins examines the life of the chief justice.
More
Northeast Public Radio- John A. Jenkins is interviewed on The Roundtable.
Politics and Prose- Listen to John A. Jenkins as he discusses The Partisan.
Listen to a recording of John's discussion at Politics and Prose.
Books Q & A- Read the transcript of Deborah Kalb's interview with John A. Jenkins.
John A. Jenkins speaks at the
John A. Jenkins speaks at the Gaithersburg Book Festival
