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Oregon's senior U.S. Sen., Ron Wyden, took to the Senate floor today to blast the nomination of Ryan Bounds, a Portland federal prosecutor, for a spot on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Bounds, a conservative and a protege of U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) failed to gain the support of either of Oregon's U.S. Senators, Wyden or Jeff Merkley. But breaking with tradition, the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee granted Bounds a hearing anyway. It is scheduled for May 9.
Four groups of Oregon lawyers—The Oregon Asian Pacific Bar Association, the Oregon Women Lawyers, the Oregon Hispanic Bar Association and the LGBT Bar Association of Oregon—wrote to the Judiciary Committee on April 23 urging the panel to reject Bounds.
They cite inflammatory writing he did while an undergraduate at Stanford 25 years ago, in which critics say he expressed "alarming views about sexual assault, workers' rights, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community."
The groups further took Bounds to task for failing to disclose those writings to an independent review panel Wyden and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley convened and for his dismissive attitude toward concerns about them.
In his speech today, Wyden said that moving forward with Bounds' nomination over his and Merkley's objections "throws in the dustbin a century of tradition."
"Mr. Bounds misled the independent committee that considers potential nominees in Oregon by withholding inflammatory writings that reveal disturbing views on sexual assault and on communities of people who are vulnerable and disadvantaged," Wyden said. "He's had ample opportunity to clean up this mess, express remorse, and explain how his views have changed, but I certainly haven't seen it."