Editing Byron White (section)

===Court operations and retirement===
[[File:Byron White with company.jpg|thumb|White (''sitting'') with other members of the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals]]White frequently urged the Supreme Court to consider [[Circuit split|cases when federal appeals courts were in conflict on issues of federal law]], believing that resolving such was a primary role of the Supreme Court. Thus, White voted to grant [[certiorari]] more often than many of his colleagues; he also wrote numerous opinions dissenting from denials of certiorari. After White (along with fellow Justice [[Harry Blackmun]], who also often voted for liberal grants of certiorari) retired, the number of cases heard each session of the Court declined steeply.<ref>See David M. O'Brien, The Rehnquist Court's Shrinking Plenary Docket, 81 Judicature 58–65 (September/October 1997).</ref>

White disliked the politics of Supreme Court appointments,<ref name="hutchinson">[[Dennis J. Hutchinson]], ''The Man Who Once Was Whizzer White: a Portrait of Justice Byron R. White'', (Glencoe, The Free Press, 1998)</ref> but had great faith in representative democracy, responding to complaints about politicians and mediocrity in government with exhortations to "get more involved and help fix it."<ref>David C. Frederick, Justice White and the Virtue of Modesty, 55 Stanford L.Rev. 21, 27 (2002)</ref> He retired in 1993, during [[Bill Clinton]]'s presidency, saying that "someone else should be permitted to have a like experience."<ref name="usa today" /> When he retired, White had been the only Democrat on the Court.{{Sfn|Greenhouse|2002}} Clinton nominated (and the Senate approved) Justice [[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]], a judge from the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit]] and a former [[Columbia University]] law professor, to succeed him.