Bounds Hearing Would Be Unprecedented, Unwarranted

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 3, 2018 – Following today’s news that a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing will be held May 9 for Ryan Bounds, a Donald Trump nominee for the Ninth Circuit for whom both home-state senators have withheld their blue slips, AFJ President Nan Aron released the following statement:

“Scheduling a hearing for Ryan Bounds is an unprecedented affront to the advise-and-consent role of senators, even in this era in which rules and norms are broken daily in the Senate and at the White House.  To our knowledge, no federal judicial nominee has ever been granted a committee hearing when both of his or her home-state senators have withheld their blue slips. To break this rule now is not only unprecedented, it is wholly unwarranted for this nominee. Ryan Bounds has written disparagingly about survivors of sexual assault, about the rights of workers, about people of color and about LGBTQ Americans. Senators Wyden and Merkley withheld their blue slips because they believe Bounds’s writings do not represent the values of Oregonians, and it is shameful that their input is not being respected in the way that home-state senators’ has been for over a hundred years.”