William Rehnquist in the context of "U.S. Army Air Forces"

Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court on December 12, 2000, that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. On December 8, the Florida Supreme Court had ordered a statewide recount of all undervotes, over 61,000 ballots that the vote tabulation machines had missed. The Bush campaign immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the decision and halt the recount. Justice Antonin Scalia, contending that all the manual recounts being performed in Florida's counties were illegitimate, urged his colleagues to grant the stay immediately. On December 9, the five conservative justices on the Court granted the stay, with Scalia citing "irreparable harm" that could befall Bush, as the recounts would cast "a needless and unjustified cloud" over Bush's legitimacy. In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that "counting every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable harm." Oral arguments were scheduled for December 11.

In a 5–4 per curiam decision, the Court ruled, strictly on equal protection grounds, that the recount be stopped. Specifically, it held that the use of different standards of counting in different counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution; the case had also been argued on Article II jurisdictional grounds, which found favor with only justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and William Rehnquist. The Court then ruled as to a remedy, deciding against the one, proposed by Justices Stephen Breyer and David Souter, of sending the case back to Florida to complete the recount using a uniform statewide standard before the scheduled December 18 meeting of Florida's electors in Tallahassee. Instead, the majority held that no alternative method could be established within the discretionary December 12 "safe harbor" deadline set by Title 3 of the United States Code (3 U.S.C.), § 5, which the Florida Supreme Court had said the Florida Legislature intended to meet. The Court, holding that not meeting the "safe harbor" deadline would violate the Florida Election Code, rejected an extension of the deadline to allow the Florida court to finish counting disputed ballots under uniform guidelines requested in a remedy proposed by Breyer and Souter. That deadline arrived two hours after the release of the Court's decision.

The first inauguration of George W. Bush as the 43rd president of the United States took place on Saturday, January 20, 2001, at the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 54th inauguration and marked the commencement of the first term of George W. Bush as president and Dick Cheney as vice president. Chief Justice William Rehnquist administered the presidential oath of office at 12:01 p.m., after he administered the vice presidential oath of office as well. An estimated 300,000 people attended the swearing-in ceremony. This was the first presidential inauguration to take place in the 21st century, and the first in the 3rd millennium.

Weather conditions for 12 noon at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, located 3.1 miles from the ceremony, were: 36 °F (2 °C), wind 12 mph, and cloudy.

John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American jurist who has served since 2005 as the 17th chief justice of the United States. Though primarily an institutionalist, he has been described as having a moderate conservative judicial philosophy. Regarded as a swing vote in some cases, Roberts has presided over an ideological shift toward conservative jurisprudence on the high court, in which he has authored key opinions.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Roberts was raised Catholic in Northwest Indiana and studied at Harvard University, initially intending to become a historian. He graduated in three years with highest distinction, then attended Harvard Law School, where he was the managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. Roberts later served as a law clerk for Judge Henry Friendly and Justice William Rehnquist and held positions in the Department of Justice from 1989 to 1993 during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Roberts then built a leading appellate practice, arguing 39 cases before the Supreme Court.

A total of 116 people have served on the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial body in the United States, since it was established in 1789. Supreme Court justices have life tenure, meaning that they serve until they die, resign, retire, or are impeached and removed from office. For the 107 non-incumbent justices, the average length of service was 6,203 days (16 years, 359 days). The longest serving justice was William O. Douglas, with a tenure of 13,358 days (36 years, 209 days). The longest serving chief justice was John Marshall, with a tenure of 12,570 days (34 years, 152 days). John Rutledge, who served on the court twice, was both the shortest serving associate justice, with a tenure of 383 days (1 year, 18 days), and the shortest serving chief justice, with a tenure of 138 days (4 months 16 days). Among the current members of the court, Clarence Thomas' tenure of 12,483 days (34 years, 64 days) is the longest, while Ketanji Brown Jackson's 1,275 days (3 years, 179 days) is the shortest.

The table below ranks all United States Supreme Court justices by time in office. For five individuals confirmed for associate justice, and who later served as chief justice—Charles Evans Hughes, William Rehnquist, John Rutledge, Harlan F. Stone, and Edward Douglass White—their cumulative length of service on the court is measured. The basis of the ranking is the difference between dates; if counted by number of calendar days all the figures would be one greater, with the exception of Charles Evans Hughes and John Rutledge, who would receive two days, as each served on the court twice (their service as associate justice and as chief justice was separated by a period of years off the court). The start date given for each justice is the day they took the prescribed oath of office, with the end date being the date of the justice's death, resignation, or retirement. A highlighted row indicates a justice currently serving on the court.

John Paul Stevens (April 20, 1920 – July 16, 2019) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1975 to 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldest justice in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court and the third-longest-serving justice. At the time of his death in 2019 at age 99, he was the longest-lived Supreme Court justice ever. His long tenure saw him write for the Court on most issues of American law, including civil liberties, the death penalty, government action, and intellectual property. Despite being a registered Republican who throughout his life identified as a conservative, Stevens was considered to have been on the liberal side of the Court at the time of his retirement.

Born in Chicago, Stevens served in the United States Navy during World War II and graduated from Northwestern University School of Law. After clerking for Justice Wiley Rutledge, he co-founded a law firm in Chicago, focusing on antitrust law. In 1970, President Richard Nixon appointed Stevens to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Five years later, President Gerald Ford nominated Stevens to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of Justice William O. Douglas. He became the senior associate justice after the retirement of Harry Blackmun in 1994. After the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 2005, Stevens briefly served as acting Chief Justice before the appointment of John Roberts. Stevens retired in 2010 during the administration of President Barack Obama and was succeeded by Elena Kagan.