The U.S. Senate yesterday voted 53-44 to confirm President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Ronnie White to the federal bench for the Eastern District of Missouri.
It was White’s second time to come before the Senate seeking their approval for the position. He was previously nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1997, but the Senate rejected him then after then-Sen. John Ashcroft, a Republican who was also from Missouri, accused him of being “pro-criminal and activist, with a slant toward criminals and defendants and against prosecutors.”
Many observers think Ashcroft’s focus on criminal justice was a cover for his real reason for opposing White: the nominee’s history of protecting legalized abortion-on-demand by any means necessary – even at the expense of his ethics.
There’s an unofficial pact between both parties in the Senate that abortion shouldn’t be used as a litmus test for federal judicial nominees, so Ashcroft couldn’t talk about White’s record on the issue without angering his colleagues. But in the early 1990s, Ashcroft – then governor of Missouri – and White, then a state representative, clashed repeatedly over abortion legislation.
Ashcroft accused then-Rep. White and Speaker of the General Assembly Bob Griffin, both Democrats, of conspiring to block pro-life legislation. Griffin, an ardent defender of legalized abortion, had appointed White chairman of the Civil and Criminal Justice Committee, then steered every single pro-life bill into that committee so White could kill it before it reached the floor. The duo’s continuous stonewalling of pro-life bills eventually led to a sit-down strike by legislators from both parties in 1995.
In one particularly grievous example in 1992, a pro-life bill was awaiting vote in White’s committee. White scheduled a meeting to discuss the bill, but promised no vote would occur that day. One pro-life legislator failed to attend the meeting, and White, breaking his promise, held a roll-call vote. The bill failed in an 8-8 vote, since a tie meant the legislation died in committee. Had the pro-life legislator been present, the bill would have moved forward.
White’s ethically questionable political maneuvering on behalf of abortion supporters earned him a “Good Guy Award” from the St. Louis Women’s Caucus, which exists mainly to promote abortion-on-demand.
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Ahead of the Senate’s vote Wednesday, Missouri Right to Life released an open letter opposing White’s confirmation.
“As a legislator and committee chair, Ronnie White was not willing to abide by his own commitments to the Governor and to a fellow legislator on an issue of overriding importance to the people of Missouri,” wrote James S. Cole, the group’s general counsel. “As a state Supreme Court judge, he was not willing to make Planned Parenthood return Missouri taxpayers' money that it had received in violation of the duly-enacted law enacted by the Legislature. He has shown that he should not be entrusted with a lifetime appointment to the bench of the United States.”
White’s confirmation comes just a month after the confirmation of two other controversial Obama judicial appointments, Judge Staci Michelle Yandle of the Southern District of Illinois and Darrin Gayles of the Southern District of Florida. Gayles is the first openly gay African-American man to be confirmed to the federal bench. Yandle is the second black lesbian federal judge in the nation’s history, and the first openly homosexual judge in the Seventh Circuit. Their sexual preferance is notable in light of the continuing trend of federal judges overturning voter-approved laws banning same-sex “marriage.”