According to Jeffrey Rosen, Rehnquist combined an amiable nature with great organizational skill, and he "led a Court that put the brakes on some of the excesses of the Earl Warren era while keeping pace with the sentiments of a majority of the country.

The Rehnquist Court thus began on September 26, 1986, with Scalia and the remaining eight members of the Burger Court: Rehnquist, William J. Brennan, Jr., Byron White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., John Paul Stevens, and Sandra Day O'Connor.

Powell retired in 1987; President Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork was defeated by the Senate, and his second nominee, Douglas H. Ginsburg, withdrew before a vote.

Brennan retired in 1990 and Marshall in 1991, giving President George H. W. Bush the opportunity to appoint Justices David Souter and Clarence Thomas.

[11] Stevens was often successful in winning over either or both of O'Connor and Kennedy in order to stymie the agenda of the court's conservative bloc.