Helene White - Sixth Circuit Nomination and Confirmation Under Bush

Sixth Circuit Nomination and Confirmation Under Bush

When President George W. Bush 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.