Helene White
Encyclopedia
Helene N. White is a federal judge
on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Previously, she was a judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals
.
in New York City
, White graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics from Barnard College
in 1975 and the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1978. She then clerked for two years for Michigan Supreme Court
Justice Charles Levin
, whom she would later marry and, in November 2006, divorce. White then won an elected position on the Common Pleas Court for the City of Detroit, and in 1982 was elected to the Wayne County Circuit Court. White was elected to her position on the Michigan Court of Appeals in November 1992, and began serving in January 1993.
nominated White to a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that was created by the decision by Sixth Circuit Judge Damon Keith
to shift to senior status
. With the U.S. Senate controlled by Republicans during Clinton's entire second term, White's nomination languished for more than four years, chiefly because of objections from Michigan's Republican senator at the time, Spencer Abraham
.
Abraham had been angry with Clinton because Abraham previously had aided the president in getting three Democratic judicial nominees from Michigan approved in the Republican-controlled Senate allegedly on the condition that Clinton make no more nominations to the federal courts from his state. When Clinton went ahead and nominated White contrary to the previous agreement, Abraham refused to give his approval of her, keeping White's nomination stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee without a hearing or committee vote. When Clinton later nominated Kathleen McCree Lewis
in 1999 to a second Michigan vacancy on the Sixth Circuit, Abraham did not allow her to be processed in committee either.
Despite the delays, being picked to sit on a court just one notch below the U.S. Supreme Court "is like being hit by lightning," White told the Detroit News in an article that was published on October 17, 1999. "To say I'm going to pick up my jacks and go home is self-defeating. Why would I take them off the hook." White acknowledged to the paper that she had considered withdrawing for "maybe 30 seconds." But at the time the article appeared, White told the paper she believed she would be given a fair hearing. "From everything I've heard, Sen. Abraham is a decent guy," White told the paper. "I have no reason to believe I won't get a hearing."
Ultimately, White's nomination was returned to the White House when Clinton's presidency ended. White's four year nomination remains one of the single longest federal appeals-court judicial nominations never given a full Senate vote, exceeded only by the failed nomination of Bush nominee Terrence Boyle
from 2001 to 2007.
took office in 2001, he quickly submitted Republican nominees to fill the two Michigan vacancies that Abraham had refused to allow Clinton to fill. However, Michigan's two Democratic senators, Carl Levin
, who was the cousin of White's husband at the time, and Debbie Stabenow
, who had defeated Abraham in the 2000 election, consistently tried to block all of Bush's circuit court nominees from Michigan, citing the fact that White and Lewis, who eventually died in October 2007, had never received up-or-down votes from the Senate during Clinton's presidency. The two senators were successful in the filibuster
of Bush nominee Henry Saad
, who later withdrew. But as part of the Gang of 14
deal in May 2005, they finally allowed the confirmation of stalled Bush nominees David W. McKeague, Richard A. Griffin
and Susan Bieke Neilson. Griffin, in fact, wound up filling the seat to which White had been nominated by President Clinton.
After Neilson's death in 2006, there were again two Michigan vacancies on the Sixth Circuit. Bush quickly named Raymond Kethledge
and Stephen J. Murphy III to fill the positions. However, after the Democrats regained control of the Senate in November 2006, Levin and Stabenow once again balked at confirming any further Bush nominees from Michigan to the Sixth Circuit.
On April 15, 2008, as part of a deal to unblock this logjam, Bush renominated White to the Sixth Circuit, more than eleven years after she was first nominated by Clinton. She replaced Murphy as the nominee to fill Neilson's vacated seat, while Murphy was given a Michigan district court nomination in exchange. In return for White's renomination, Levin and Stabenow agreed to allow Kethledge to be confirmed.
Another example of President Bush nominating one of President Clinton's previously stalled appellate nominees is the case of Judge Roger Gregory
of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
.
White, along with Kethledge and Murphy, received a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 7, 2008, less than a month after her nomination. White was pointedly questioned by Republican senators, who were angry that her nomination had been fast-tracked by the Democratic committee chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy
, past several other Bush circuit court nominees who had been waiting in committee for much longer periods of time during the 110th Congress. She was voted out of committee on June 12, 2008 by an 11-8 margin. All of the Republicans on the committee, except Orrin Hatch
, the chairman of the committee during the Clinton administration, voted against her purportedly on the grounds that she had not provided the committee with copies of her unpublished judicial opinions that were later reversed by the Michigan Supreme Court
. On June 24, 2008, she was confirmed by the full Senate by a 63-32 vote. She received her commission on August 8, 2008. White was the ninth and final judge nominated to the Sixth Circuit by Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate
.
United States federal judge
In the United States, the title of federal judge usually means a judge appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate in accordance with Article II of the United States Constitution....
on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Previously, she was a judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals
Michigan Court of Appeals
The Michigan Court of Appeals is the intermediate-level appellate court of the state of Michigan. It was created by the Michigan Constitution of 1963, and commenced operations in 1965...
.
Background
Born in Jackson Heights, QueensJackson Heights, Queens
Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the Northwestern portion of the borough of Queens in New York, New York, United States. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 3...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, White graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics from Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...
in 1975 and the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1978. She then clerked for two years for Michigan Supreme Court
Michigan Supreme Court
The Michigan Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is known as Michigan's "court of last resort" and consists of seven justices who are elected to eight-year terms. Candidates are nominated by political parties and are elected on a nonpartisan ballot...
Justice Charles Levin
Charles Levin
Charles Leonard Levin was a Michigan jurist. He served as a Michigan Court of Appeals judge from 1966 to 1972 and as a justice of the Michigan Supreme Court from 1973 to 1996. He attended the University of Michigan where he received his B.A. in 1946 and his LL.B...
, whom she would later marry and, in November 2006, divorce. White then won an elected position on the Common Pleas Court for the City of Detroit, and in 1982 was elected to the Wayne County Circuit Court. White was elected to her position on the Michigan Court of Appeals in November 1992, and began serving in January 1993.
Sixth Circuit nomination under Clinton
On January 7, 1997, President Bill ClintonBill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
nominated White to a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that was created by the decision by Sixth Circuit Judge Damon Keith
Damon Keith
Damon Jerome Keith is a Senior Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.-Biography:Keith grew up in Detroit, where he graduated from Northwestern High School in 1939; Keith then moved on to West Virginia State College , Howard University School of Law , and Wayne State...
to shift to senior status
Senior status
Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for United States federal judges, and judges in some state court systems. After federal judges have reached a certain combination of age and years of service on the federal courts, they are allowed to assume senior status...
. With the U.S. Senate controlled by Republicans during Clinton's entire second term, White's nomination languished for more than four years, chiefly because of objections from Michigan's Republican senator at the time, Spencer Abraham
Spencer Abraham
Edmund Spencer Abraham is a former United States Senator from Michigan. He served as the tenth United States Secretary of Energy, serving under President George W. Bush. Abraham is one of the founders of the Federalist Society....
.
Abraham had been angry with Clinton because Abraham previously had aided the president in getting three Democratic judicial nominees from Michigan approved in the Republican-controlled Senate allegedly on the condition that Clinton make no more nominations to the federal courts from his state. When Clinton went ahead and nominated White contrary to the previous agreement, Abraham refused to give his approval of her, keeping White's nomination stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee without a hearing or committee vote. When Clinton later nominated Kathleen McCree Lewis
Kathleen McCree Lewis
Kathleen McCree Lewis was an American lawyer and former federal judicial nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.- Early life and education :Lewis was born in Boston...
in 1999 to a second Michigan vacancy on the Sixth Circuit, Abraham did not allow her to be processed in committee either.
Despite the delays, being picked to sit on a court just one notch below the U.S. Supreme Court "is like being hit by lightning," White told the Detroit News in an article that was published on October 17, 1999. "To say I'm going to pick up my jacks and go home is self-defeating. Why would I take them off the hook." White acknowledged to the paper that she had considered withdrawing for "maybe 30 seconds." But at the time the article appeared, White told the paper she believed she would be given a fair hearing. "From everything I've heard, Sen. Abraham is a decent guy," White told the paper. "I have no reason to believe I won't get a hearing."
Ultimately, White's nomination was returned to the White House when Clinton's presidency ended. White's four year nomination remains one of the single longest federal appeals-court judicial nominations never given a full Senate vote, exceeded only by the failed nomination of Bush nominee Terrence Boyle
Terrence Boyle
Terrence William Boyle is a judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. He was Chief Judge of that court from 1997-2004. From 1991 to 1993 and again from 2001 to 2007, he was a nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit...
from 2001 to 2007.
Sixth Circuit nomination and confirmation under Bush
When President George W. BushGeorge W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
took office in 2001, he quickly submitted Republican nominees to fill the two Michigan vacancies that Abraham had refused to allow Clinton to fill. However, Michigan's two Democratic senators, Carl Levin
Carl Levin
Carl Milton Levin is a Jewish-American United States Senator from Michigan, serving since 1979. He is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He is a member of the Democratic Party....
, who was the cousin of White's husband at the time, and Debbie Stabenow
Debbie Stabenow
Deborah Ann Greer "Debbie" Stabenow is the junior United States Senator from Michigan and a member of the Democratic Party. Before her election to the U.S. Senate, she was a member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Michigan's 8th congressional district from 1997 to 2001...
, who had defeated Abraham in the 2000 election, consistently tried to block all of Bush's circuit court nominees from Michigan, citing the fact that White and Lewis, who eventually died in October 2007, had never received up-or-down votes from the Senate during Clinton's presidency. The two senators were successful in the filibuster
Filibuster
A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure. Specifically, it is the right of an individual to extend debate, allowing a lone member to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal...
of Bush nominee Henry Saad
Henry Saad
Henry William Saad is a judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals and a former nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was born in Detroit, Michigan.-Background:...
, who later withdrew. But as part of the Gang of 14
Gang of 14
The Gang of 14 was a term coined to describe the bipartisan group of Senators in the 109th United States Congress who successfully negotiated a compromise in the spring of 2005 to avoid the deployment of the so-called nuclear option over an organized use of the filibuster by Senate...
deal in May 2005, they finally allowed the confirmation of stalled Bush nominees David W. McKeague, Richard A. Griffin
Richard Allen Griffin
Richard Allen Griffin is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Previously, he was a judge on the Michigan Court of Appeals.- Background :...
and Susan Bieke Neilson. Griffin, in fact, wound up filling the seat to which White had been nominated by President Clinton.
After Neilson's death in 2006, there were again two Michigan vacancies on the Sixth Circuit. Bush quickly named Raymond Kethledge
Raymond Kethledge
Raymond M. Kethledge is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.- Background :...
and Stephen J. Murphy III to fill the positions. However, after the Democrats regained control of the Senate in November 2006, Levin and Stabenow once again balked at confirming any further Bush nominees from Michigan to the Sixth Circuit.
On April 15, 2008, as part of a deal to unblock this logjam, Bush renominated White to the Sixth Circuit, more than eleven years after she was first nominated by Clinton. She replaced Murphy as the nominee to fill Neilson's vacated seat, while Murphy was given a Michigan district court nomination in exchange. In return for White's renomination, Levin and Stabenow agreed to allow Kethledge to be confirmed.
Another example of President Bush nominating one of President Clinton's previously stalled appellate nominees is the case of Judge Roger Gregory
Roger Gregory
Roger L. Gregory is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.- Background :Gregory was born in Philadelphia but grew up in Petersburg, Virginia. He earned his B.A. degree summa cum laude from Virginia State University in 1975 and his law degree from the...
of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:*District of Maryland*Eastern District of North Carolina...
.
White, along with Kethledge and Murphy, received a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 7, 2008, less than a month after her nomination. White was pointedly questioned by Republican senators, who were angry that her nomination had been fast-tracked by the Democratic committee chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy
Patrick Leahy
Patrick Joseph Leahy is the senior United States Senator from Vermont and member of the Democratic Party. He is the first and only elected Democratic United States Senator in Vermont's history. He is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy is the second most senior U.S. Senator,...
, past several other Bush circuit court nominees who had been waiting in committee for much longer periods of time during the 110th Congress. She was voted out of committee on June 12, 2008 by an 11-8 margin. All of the Republicans on the committee, except Orrin Hatch
Orrin Hatch
Orrin Grant Hatch is the senior United States Senator for Utah and is a member of the Republican Party. Hatch served as the chairman or ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1993 to 2005...
, the chairman of the committee during the Clinton administration, voted against her purportedly on the grounds that she had not provided the committee with copies of her unpublished judicial opinions that were later reversed by the Michigan Supreme Court
Michigan Supreme Court
The Michigan Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is known as Michigan's "court of last resort" and consists of seven justices who are elected to eight-year terms. Candidates are nominated by political parties and are elected on a nonpartisan ballot...
. On June 24, 2008, she was confirmed by the full Senate by a 63-32 vote. She received her commission on August 8, 2008. White was the ninth and final judge nominated to the Sixth Circuit by Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
.
See also
- Bill Clinton judicial appointment controversies
- George W. Bush judicial appointment controversiesGeorge W. Bush judicial appointment controversiesDuring President George W. Bush's two term tenure in office, he nominated thirty-nine people for twenty-seven different federal appellate judgeships that were blocked by the Senate Democrats either directly in the Senate Judiciary Committee or on the full Senate floor using a filibuster....
External links
- Michigan Court of Appeals bio
- Bray, Thomas J., "Judges and Grudges: Michigan's Democratic senators seek payback," The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, December 4, 2001. - Thomas, Ken, "Bush nominates Michigan appellate judge to 6th Circuit slot," The Associated Press, April 15, 2008.
- Egan, Paul, and Trowbridge, Gordon, "U.S. Attorney in Detroit nominated to federal bench," The Detroit News, April 15, 2008.
- Thomas, Ken, "GOP senators question quick action on judicial nominee," AP Google, May 7, 2008.