Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who led the Supreme Court in curbing death-row appeals and limiting congressional power, died at 80. His death creates a second vacancy for President George W. Bush to fill and ratchets up the stakes in the fight over the high court's future.

He died at his home in Arlington, Virginia this evening.

Bush, who nominated appeals court Judge John G. Roberts Jr. in July to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has a chance to leave a decades-long legal legacy, shaping future Supreme Court rulings on abortion, affirmative action and the death penalty.

Rehnquist, who joined the court in 1972 as a Richard Nixon appointee and was elevated to chief justice in 1986 by Ronald Reagan, leaves behind a court that inched closer to his conservative views on some issues. Most notably, the Rehnquist court put new constraints on congressional power, broadened police powers and imposed limits on appeals of capital punishment sentences.

Rehnquist had less success in prodding the court to scale back abortion rights, affirmative action and gay rights. On each of those issues, the chief justice found himself dissenting from landmark rulings, including the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision that reaffirmed a women's right to an abortion.

In 2002 Rehnquist wrote a 5-4 decision upholding a school voucher program for the first time, rejecting contentions that the plan unconstitutionally channeled public funds toward religious institutions. In 2004, he voted to uphold the use of ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance at public schools, faulting the court majority for declining to resolve that issue.

Affirmative Action

``The phrase `under God' in the pledge seems, as a historical matter, to sum up the attitude of the nation's leaders,'' Rehnquist wrote.

In 2003 Rehnquist voted against the use of race in college admissions, calling a University of Michigan affirmative-action policy ``a naked effort to achieve racial balancing.''

In one of a series of rulings that tipped the federal-state balance of power toward the states, he wrote for the court in 2000 when it voided a law letting rape victims sue their assailants in federal court.

Rehnquist was one of five Republican-appointed justices who halted Florida's ballot recounts, ensuring Bush's election victory over Democrat Al Gore in 2000.

Rehnquist disclosed his illness Oct. 25, and missed the next 44 Supreme Court arguments before returning to the bench March 21. He underwent a tracheotomy, radiation and chemotherapy.

His tenure as chief justice is the fourth-longest in U.S. history. The O'Connor and Rehnquist departures end the longest stretch of continuity on the court since 1823.

Replacement Candidates

The president can either seek a new chief justice from outside the court or try to promote a sitting associate justice and fill that seat with a separate nominee.

If Bush opts for the latter route -- something presidents have done only four times -- his most likely candidates are Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Both are ardent critics of Supreme Court decisions protecting abortion rights, allowing affirmative action and limiting prayer at public schools.

Bush may opt to name the court's first Hispanic justice, possibly Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or Judge Emilio Garza of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A number of conservative groups say they oppose Gonzales because of concern over how he would vote on abortion and affirmative action.

Among women candidates are Judges Edith Brown Clement and Edith H. Jones of the 5th Circuit.

First in His Class

A favorite among conservatives is Judge Michael Luttig of the 4th Circuit. Luttig, who works in Alexandria, Virginia, has advocated new limits on the power of Congress and said the president should have broad leeway to detain enemies of the U.S.

Another possibility is Luttig's colleague on the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th Circuit, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a protege of former Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. In 2002, the law journal Judicature concluded that Wilkinson was the most conservative of six prospective nominees studied. Other candidates include Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. of the Philadelphia- based 3rd Circuit.

Born on Oct. 1, 1924, Rehnquist grew up in Milwaukee, where his father was a wholesale paper salesman. Rehnquist served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II and earned two master's degrees in addition to his law degree. He finished first in his law school class at Stanford and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson.

A 1952 memorandum he wrote while clerking for Jackson, favoring ``separate but equal'' schools for blacks, surfaced two decades later in Rehnquist's Senate confirmation hearing. He said the memo reflected Jackson's views, not his own.

Early Dissents

Rehnquist moved to Phoenix, where he practiced law and got involved in Republican politics. He worked on Barry Goldwater's 1964 unsuccessful presidential campaign and later joined the Nixon administration, running the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

During his first few years on the Supreme Court, Rehnquist frequently found himself on the losing side of cases. He was one of four to vote against a national suspension of the death penalty in 1972. Rehnquist was one of two dissenters from a 1979 ruling that permitted voluntary affirmative action plans by employers.

Rehnquist picked up allies as Republican appointees joined the court. In 1995, he wrote a 5-4 decision striking down a federal law aimed at keeping guns out of school zones, saying Congress's power over interstate commerce doesn't extend to that type of local matter.

In a separate line of decisions, the Rehnquist court buttressed the immunity of state agencies from private lawsuits alleging such things as discrimination and patent infringement.

Death Sentences

A Rehnquist-led majority limited the rights of convicted killers to challenge their death sentences in federal court. In 1993, he wrote a decision that said death-row inmates who had a fair trial can't use new proof of their innocence to justify a fresh federal appeal.

While on the court, Rehnquist moonlighted as an author, publishing books on Supreme Court procedures, impeachments and civil liberties in wartime. The impeachment book was brought back into print when Rehnquist presided over the 1999 trial of President Bill Clinton.

Rehnquist was the court's second-oldest justice, behind John Paul Stevens. He is survived by his children, James, Janet and Nancy. His wife Natalie died in 1991.

To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 3, 2005 23:33 EDT