page_title: History of the Supreme Court of the United States
section_title: The Rehnquist Court (1986–2005)
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Supreme Court of the United States / The Rehnquist Court (1986–2005)
caption_attribution_description: U.S. Supreme Court, 1998 Back row (left to right): w:Ruth Bader Ginsburg, w:David Hackett Souter, w:Clarence Thomas, w:Stephen Breyer; front row (left to right): w:Antonin Scalia, w:John Paul Stevens, w:William Hubbs Rehnquist, w:Sandra Day O'Connor, w:Anthony M. Kennedy.
context_page_description: The Judicial Branch is a history of the Supreme Court of the United States, organized by Chief Justice. The Supreme Court of the United States is the only court specifically established by the Constitution of the United States, implemented in 1789; under the Judiciary Act of 1789, the Court was to be composed of six members—though the number of justices has been nine for most of its history, this number is set by Congress, not the Constitution. The court convened for the first time on February 2, 1790.
context_section_description: Chief Justice William Rehnquist served from Burger's retirement in 1986 until his own death on September 3, 2005. The Rehnquist Court generally took a limited view of Congress's powers under the commerce clause, as exemplified by United States v. Lopez (1995). The Court made numerous controversial decisions, including Texas v. Johnson (1989), which declared that flag burning was a form of speech protected by the First Amendment; Lee v. Weisman (1992), which declared officially sanctioned, student-led school prayers unconstitutional; Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), which voided laws prohibiting late-term abortions; and Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which struck down laws prohibiting sodomy. (Some commentators see these decisions as part of the "culture wars.") Another controversial decision of the Rehnquist court in 2003 was Grutter v. Bollinger which upheld affirmative action.  Perhaps the most controversial decision made by the Court came in Bush v. Gore (2000), which ended election recounts in Florida following the presidential election of 2000, allowing George W. Bush to become the forty-third U.S. President.
  Rehnquist led a remarkably stable Court - for the eleven years from when Stephen Breyer took the oath in 1994, to Rehnquist's death in 2005, the composition of the Court remained unchanged - the longest such stretch in over 180 years.
caption: U.S. Supreme Court, 1998.
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