Supreme Court Nominee William Brennan Gives Surprising Answers at Confirmation Hearings
William J. Brennan, nominated for a seat on the Supreme Court by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, gave testimony at his confirmation hearing on this day that was quite surprising, given his decisions once he was on the Court.
He said he approved of legislative investigations into possible Communist associations of individuals. It appears that in his testimony, Brennan was trying to deflect the criticisms of Senator Joe McCarthy, who had attacked him for some earlier remarks, when Brennan attacked “overzealous” anti-Communist measures.
Brennan had joined the Court on October 15, 1956, through an interim appointment, and the Senate, in early 1957, was finally getting around to confirming him.
Once on the Court, however, Brennan became one of the greatest civil libertarians ever to serve on it. In several cases, for example, he voted to limit legislative investigations into political beliefs and associations. Particularly important, see the decisions on “Red Monday,” June 17, 1957, just one year after he joined the Court, when the Court struck down a series of anti-Communist measures.
Even by the 1970s Court observers regarded Brennan as the intellectual leader of the “Warren Court,” and some believe that Chief Justice Warren made a point of assigning him to write the court’s majority opinion in particularly important cases.
Brennan retired from the Court in 1990 after serving for 34 years. He died on July 24, 1997. His life and work are memorialized by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.
Learn more about Justice Brennan: Roger Goldman and David Gallen, Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.: Freedom First (1994)
Watch University of Chicago Law Professor Geoffrey Stone discuss his year as a clerk for Justice Brennan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YN2MMlr07U
Learn more: Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel, Justice Brennan: Liberal Champion (2010)