Sharp Rhetoric Marks First Day of Rehnquist Hearings

Sharply worded assaults by liberal Democratic senators on Supreme Court Justice William H. Rehnquist’s nomination to be chief justice sparked unusually biting retorts from GOP senators as confirmation hearings opened Tuesday.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) went furthest in denouncing Rehnquist, calling him “too extreme” on race, women’s rights, freedom of speech and separation of church and state to be the nation’s 16th chief justice.

“Justice Rehnquist is outside the mainstream of American constitutional law and American values and he does not deserve to be chief justice of the United States,” Kennedy told a packed hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Dropping the “senatorial courtesy” that usually sets the tone at early stages of confirmation sessions, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) shot back: “Some of these assertions today are somewhat ridiculous.”

Apparently referring to earlier attacks on lower-court nominees by some committee Democrats, Hatch said: “It’s time we quit attacking everybody who comes before this committee. We should stop the character assassination that has been going on.”

Rehnquist, whose recommendation appears a near certainty despite the sharp rhetoric, seemed to listen intently to both pro and con opening statements by committee members as he and his wife, Nan, sat in the front row of the hearing room.

In a brief statement of his own, he thanked the senators and said: “I am deeply grateful to the President for the confidence he has manifested in me.” Rehnquist, who faces questioning today, said he will “welcome the opportunity” to answer queries from the committee.

Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), a staunch Rehnquist supporter, laid out in remarks laced with sarcasm the kind of attack Rehnquist is likely to face at the hearings, which are likely to continue at least through Thursday.

He predicted that Rehnquist would be denounced as “a racist, an extremist, a trampler of the poor, a sexist, an unwell man and a crazed” law clerk. Rehnquist, as a law clerk, wrote a pro-segregation memo to Justice Robert H. Jackson in 1952. That period, Simpson said, “was a very different time--a snapshot of a different era.”

He forecast that the hearings would be marked by “nastiness, hype, hoorah and maybe even a little hysteria. This is that other branch,” he said looking directly at Rehnquist. “We are not bound by the niceties of the law.”

‘Serious Questions’ Raised

Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) said that “serious questions have been raised about whether Justice Rehnquist was involved in challenging or harassing voters during the 1960s and whether he was straightforward in explaining these activities to the Senate in 1971,” when he was confirmed as an associate justice of the high court.

Metzenbaum, noting that he and Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) had asked that 12 witnesses be called to testify about the allegations, which Rehnquist has denied, said: “We must resolve these factual issues fairly and completely.”

The dozen witnesses are believed to support allegations that Rehnquist took part in vigorous Republican challenges of the qualifications of black and Latino voters in Maricopa County, Ariz., in elections in the early 1960s. Rehnquist has acknowledged serving in 1964 as GOP ballot security chairman for the county but has denied ever challenging voters.

The committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, invoked words used in 1968 by Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), the panel’s chairman, to defend the right of senators to probe the views of a high court nominee.

Thurmond, in his opposition to the nomination of Justice Abe Fortas as chief justice, said the court “has assumed such a powerful role as a policy-maker that the Senate must necessarily be concerned with the views of prospective justices or chief justices as they relate to broad issues confronting the American people and the role of the court in dealing with these issues.”

Characterization Rejected

Former Atty. Gen. Griffin B. Bell, the only witness to testify Tuesday, rejected Kennedy’s characterization of Rehnquist as an extremist. Classifying Rehnquist as a conservative on the court and Justice William J. Brennan as a liberal, Bell said: “I do not consider Justice Brennan or Justice Rehnquist to be an extremist. . . . They reason from a firmly held philosophy of the Constitution.”

Bell, who served as attorney general during the Jimmy Carter Administration, said ideology “was an issue that was resolved in the (presidential) elections. If we want to get Democrats, more liberal people, we’ll have to win the election.”

Forty-seven other witnesses, organized in 10 panels of four and five each, are scheduled to testify after Rehnquist is questioned today at a session expected to stretch well into the evening. All but three of the panels appear to be made up of Rehnquist opponents.

Times staff writer Gabe Fuentes contributed to this story.