An Injury to One

It is unfortunate that US Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has a accessible path to his office in the supreme court. It would have been nice to see him crawl up the steps. It is fitting to see him roll up to work in a wheelchair as it was a little less than a year ago that he dissented on the Tennessee v. Lane decision ("... which involved a criminal defendant who used a wheelchair and was forced to crawl up steps or be carried to get to his trial in a State proceeding, and other issues around access to State courthouses" - From AAPD and Station504).

His championing of states rights over individual civil rights and his striking down key provisions of the ADA in 2000 have won him few fans on this blog.

Quoth the Nation:

Rehnquist said that the law in question was ill-conceived because he didn't agree with Congress's evaluation of evidence on the subject, saying it was based on "unexamined, anecdotal accounts" that did not qualify as "legislative findings.

Yes, we will dearly miss him, not because of the real estate boom in DC secondary to a John-Paulesque deathwatch, but because any replacement sent up by the current administration will certainly be worse.