Chief Justice Earl Warren, Republican

As they struggle to regain the political initiative, Republicans would do well to remember the GOP's heritage of civil rights achievement.

On this day in 1953, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower nominated a fellow Republican, Earl Warren, as Chief Justice.  Warren was Governor of California at the time.  Within a year, Chief Justice Warren would write the Brown v. Board of Education decision, striking down the Democrats' racial segregation of public schools.

Warren entered politics in 1939 when he was elected, as a Republican, Attorney General of California.  Three years later, he was elected Governor.  At the 1944 Republican National Convention, he delivered the keynote address and criticized the Democrats repeatedly.  In 1948, Earl Warren was the Republican vice presidential nominee.  After election to the presidency, Dwight Eisenhower promised him an appointment to the first vacancy on the Supreme Court.  When Chief Justice Vinson died in the fall of 1953, Warren got the nod to succeed him as Chief Justice.  Instrumental in the appointment was Warren's old friend, Attorney General Herbert Brownell, a former chairman of the RNC.

Michael Zak's article is based on Back to Basics for the Republican Party, a history of the GOP from the civil rights perspective.  See www.republicanbasics.com for more information about the heritage of the Republican Party.

Comments

[Michael Zak]

Funny guy, that Hank Hill!

Many people who rail against Earl Warren are hard-pressed to specify which of his Supreme Court decisions were so terrible.

[Dale]

PEGGY HILL: Oh, give me a break. I don't see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?

HANK HILL: Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.