Helene N. White (born December 2, 1954) is a

Senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

United States circuit judge In the United States, federal judges are judges who serve on courts established under Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. They include the chief justice and the associate justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, the circuit judges of the U.S. Cou ...

of the

United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (in case citations, 6th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * Eastern District of Kentucky * Western District of ...

. Previously, she was a judge on the

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. Its opinions are reported both in an official publication of ...

Background

Born in

Jackson Heights, Queens Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. Jackson Heights is neighbored by North Corona to the east, Elmhurst to the south, Woodside to the west, northern Astoria ( Ditmars-Steinw ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, White graduated with an

Artium Baccalaureus Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in economics from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1975 and the

University of Pennsylvania Law School The University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School (also known as Penn Law or Penn Carey Law) is the law school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is among the most selective and olde ...

with a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

in 1978. She then clerked for two years for

Michigan Supreme Court The Michigan Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is Michigan's court of last resort and consists of seven justices. The Court is located in the Michigan Hall of Justice at 925 Ottawa Street in Lansing, the state ...

Justice Charles Levin, whom she would later marry and, in November 2006, divorce. White then won an elected position on the

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Court of Common Pleas, and in 1982 was elected to the Wayne County Circuit Court. White was elected to her position on the

in November 1992, and began serving in January 1993.

Federal judicial service

Expired Sixth Circuit nomination under Clinton

On January 7, 1997, President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

nominated White to a vacancy on the

that was created by the decision by Sixth Circuit Judge

Damon Keith Damon Jerome Keith (July 4, 1922 – April 28, 2019) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern Distr ...

to shift to

senior status Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the Federal judiciary of the United States, federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of servi ...

. With the United States 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 Edward Spencer Abraham (born June 12, 1952) is an American attorney, author, and politician who served as the tenth United States Secretary of Energy from 2001 to 2005, under President George W. Bush. A member of the Republican Party, Abraham pre ...

. 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 nominated White contrary to the previous agreement, Abraham refused to approve her, keeping White's nomination stalled in the

Senate Judiciary Committee The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations, a ...

without a hearing or committee vote. When Clinton later nominated

Kathleen McCree Lewis Kathleen McCree Lewis (September 27, 1947 – October 16, 2007) 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. 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 ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the ''Detroit Tribune'' on Februar ...

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.

Renomination to Sixth Circuit under Bush

When President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

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 Milton Levin (June 28, 1934 – July 29, 2021) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Michigan from 1979 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the chair of the Senate Armed Services C ...

, who was the cousin of White's husband at the time, and

Debbie Stabenow Deborah Ann Stabenow ( ; née Greer, born April 29, 1950) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Michigan, a seat she has held since 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, she became the state's first female ...

, 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 A filibuster is a political procedure in which one or more members of a legislative body prolong debate on proposed legislation so as to delay or entirely prevent decision. It is sometimes referred to as "talking a bill to death" or "talking out ...

of Bush nominee

Henry Saad Henry William Saad (born June 1948, in Detroit, Michigan)Resume
at US Dept of Justice website is a Gang of 14 The Gang of 14 was a bipartisan group of Senators in the 109th United States Congress who successfully, at the time, negotiated a compromise in the spring of 2005 to avoid the deployment of the so-called "nuclear option" by Senate Republican Majo ...

deal in May 2005, they finally allowed the confirmation of stalled Bush nominees

David McKeague David William McKeague (born November 5, 1946) is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Education and career McKeague received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michi ...

, Richard A. Griffin and

Susan Bieke Neilson Susan Bieke Neilson (August 27, 1956 – January 25, 2006) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and before that, a state trial judge in Michigan. Neilson was nominated by President Geor ...

. After Neilson's death in 2006, there were again two Michigan vacancies on the Sixth Circuit. Bush quickly named

Raymond Kethledge Raymond Michael Kethledge (born December 11, 1966) is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2008. Kethledge appeared on Donald Trump's list of p ...

and

Stephen J. Murphy III Stephen Joseph Murphy III (born September 23, 1962) is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Education Murphy was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He received a Bachelor of Science ...

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 with Levin and Stabenow, 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. White, along with Kethledge and Murphy, received a hearing before the

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 Joseph Leahy (; born March 31, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who is the senior United States senator from Vermont and serves as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate. A member of the Democratic Party, ...

, 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 vote. All of the Republicans on the committee, except

Orrin Hatch Orrin Grant Hatch (March 22, 1934 – April 23, 2022) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Utah from 1977 to 2019. Hatch's 42-year Senate tenure made him the longest-serving Republican U.S. senator ...

, 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

. On June 24, 2008, the Senate confirmed her by a 63–32 vote. She received her commission on August 8, 2008. White assumed

on June 13, 2022.

References

External links

*
Michigan Court of Appeals bio
* Bray, Thomas J.,
Judges and Grudges: Michigan's Democratic senators seek payback
" ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...