Tuesday, February 28th, 2006...5:58 pm
Just to Make It Complete, Let’s Build It On a Deed Restricted Lot
A few years back, the University of Arizona allowed the family of Kemper Marley to donate a load of money to have a building named for him. Ironically, it was around the same time that the University was threatening to close the School of Journalism. If you miss out on why that is funny, click here.
Well, it was not without contraversey. The building was instead named “The Marley Family Building.” I thought they should have allowed a goat to graze on the lawn and call it “agricultural land” just to make it the total Marley tribute.
Now Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl want to start a “William H. Rehnquist Center on Constitutional Structures and Judicial Independence” at the University of Arizona College of Law. Of course, this time, the object isn’t to whitewash Rehnquist’s reputation as was the case with Marley. The media has been doing that for the last thirty years.
The U of A Law school has recently been talking about expanding Hispanic enrollment. I can think of few symbols worse than naming something after Rehnquist for that. The man cut his teeth in the Republican party working on voter supression projects in the 1960’s. What next? A wing at the medical school named for Tomás Tancredo?
Alan Dershowitz had a recent article on the Rehnquist’s reputation as a law student and young lawyer. There are also stories of Rehnquist’s activities from young poll watchers at the time, like Sen. Manuel “Lito” Peña and Rep. Art Hamilton.
Setting aside his abyssmal civil rights record on the Supreme Court (difficult, I admit), why the heck would we want to name something after a guy who made his early career this way?
NB - Irony watch: McCain has recently taken on an anti-pork campaign. I take it he can justify that the future of the republic hinges on this thing getting funded?
Art Hamilton told me a story similar to the one that Peña told in the linked article. If I may paraphrase his story:
AH: I told him that there were only two ways to leave, and only one involved his own power. I regret that.
TP: Yeah, you probably shouldn’t have threatened him like that.
AH: No, I regret it because I wouldn’t have let him walk out if I’d known what he’d be like on the Supreme Court.
11 Comments
February 28th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
tedski - excellent post. I know Lito Pena’s account is true because an attorney in Phoenix at the time was one of Bill’s partners in Operation Eagle Eye and he related the same facts to me in person.
You mentioned Rehnquist’s “abysmal civil rights record” but you did not mention his finest moment. In 1973 he stood up for the most vulnerable among us and with one other person dissented in Roe v. Wade. This was the case that denied the unborn the most basic civil right, the right to live.
I don’t know if he decided as he did because of his personal views or because he thought a case should depend on more than the penumbra (shadow) of the constitution. The fact stands that because of Roe about 1 million unborn babies a year are killed in the womb.
I do not know Pena’s stand on abortion but I do know that the Democratic Party has been the great champion of abortion on demand. Challenging voters at the poles was not Bill’s finest moment but standing aside year after year as the unborn are slaughtered is not the Democrats finest moment either.
I have said it before. There have only been 2 SCOTUS appointments be a Democrat since 1973. If Democrats don’t like Rehnquist or people like him they should win the Presidency more often.
February 28th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
One of the problems with pork is that one legislator’s pork is another legislator’s vital necessity for his district. And as long as the public knows/thinks that there are federal dollars to be gotten for local projects [pork], legislators will be expected to bring home as much bacon as possible.
I wonder how McCain is going to rationalize this?
February 28th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
I met William Rehnquist. I didn’t agree with his politics, but I did find him to be a gentleman. The thing that impressed me so much about him when I met him was that he came back to Arizona to teach each year at the U. of A. law school. They didn’t make him rich. He often gave up his protection by the U.S. Marshall’s Service when running around town so that he could be the closest thing to an Arizonan that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court could be.
On the night I met him, it was at a colleagues house. He came to dinner with a total of five of us, private, no protection. My colleague is pretty damned liberal too…but befriended Justice Rehnquist. Afterwards, Justice Rehnquist entered my colleague’s living room and in came my colleague’s students…about 20 of them. Justice Rehnquist then, quietly and politely, answered their questions for a good hour until tired.
Later, when leaving, my colleague asked if I could drive him home. My wife and I were in an old beat up Civic. He had a bad back…he politely got in the car and let us drive him…he did not complain, made no remarks about what kind of situation he was now in with people he really did not know.
I could make the jokes that I held the balance of the Supreme Court in my hands that night (and I have made them). Until that night, I let my anger of his decisions get in my way of thinking that he was human and could be quite kind if you knew him.
I did not agree with him on many things, and think many of his decisions did Americans a disservice…but he was indeed a gentleman, a great Arizonan, and for what he did at Arizona each year, a Center in his name, and $2 Million, is not too much.
Best,
Roger
March 1st, 2006 at 3:02 am
You know Kral, I am reading about how some organizations dehumanize their opponents to better be able to fight against them.
We should never do that with our political opponents and too many try to. We should remember that our political opponents are human and can be polite, kind and even charming. Being able to disagree with them should not make us unwilling to at least talk to them. When you do not, you have the situation you have in Washington right now.
March 1st, 2006 at 9:27 am
…or on this blog.
March 4th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Kralmajales and Elizabeth-Excellent posts. Actually, we have that situation in Arizona too. The attacks that the Republican leadership are making on Napolitano are caustic/personal.
Gretchen
March 4th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Kralmajales–The federal government has been running $300-$400 million annual deficits the lasta several years, has an $8 trillion debt [$2.2 trillion owed to foreign countries], and it about to have to raise the debt ceiling. Given these realities, I can’t see the justification in spending $2 million for this.
Why can’t this money be raised privately? Surely they could get $2 million from the well-moneyed for this.
Gretchen
March 4th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
It ain’t just $2 Million…it’s $2 Million a year for five years.
Heck, think of all of the private school vouchers we could fund.
March 4th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
$10 million! AHRG!–Given how well the upper class has done under the Bush tax cuts/economy–Why not let them put up the whole $10 million and pay for the yearly O&M?
March 5th, 2006 at 10:50 am
Dear Gretchen and Ted:
You make good points about the idea of raising the funds independently…and I bet that they could. But remember, that is their argument about just about everything dealing with education and social programs and the like. Privatize education, research, prisons, etc etc. while spending tax dollars everywhere on defense and security.
What changed my mind about pork over the years (and one of the things that brought me from Republican to libertarian to now independent is that people freak out about $2 million (or $10) going to education, or a center, or research, but seem to say little to nothing about the Billions going to Iraq and the defense industry.
So, no, I am not minding it. It is a good issue to attack the Republicans on for now I guess, but I would rather attack them for giving tax-payer dollars to every industry in America, but those of us in education.
I’m sure I contradicting myself…maybe I just want “my pork” for once.
March 5th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Kralmajales–Go to the Concord Coalition website–non-partisan organization that’s been around for over a decade–main concern is the deficit and debt. Huge reality check re the bad state of our federal finances.
Normally I think of pork as something that benefits one location/company/industry.
Re privatizing. I don’t think the federal government should be paying for a Rehnquist Center. I think of “privatizing” as being where the government still pays for the item, but instead of having government employees do the work, they have private contractors do it. Areas in which this should NOT be done are prisons, or regulatory compliance–also, I’m sure that you’ve heard the incredible waste in Iraq with the contracting.
Gretchen
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