Dear Senator,

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) works to turn environmental values into national, state and local priorities. Each year, LCV publishes the National Environmental Scorecard, which details the voting records of members of Congress on environmental legislation. The Scorecard is distributed to LCV members, concerned voters nationwide, and the media.

We urge you to oppose the judicial nomination of Ryan Bounds to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. President Trump and Senate Republican Leadership have disregarded the blue slip process by moving forward with the nomination of Bounds without the consent of either home-state Senators, Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. According to the Congressional Research Service, this would be the first time in the history of the blue slip that a judge was confirmed over the objections of both home-state senators.

Moreover, the Senators raised their objections to Bounds because of his failure to disclose several inflammatory and racially offensive college writings to the Oregon judicial selection committee. In these writings, Bounds criticized racial affinity organizations and efforts to promote multiculturalism on college campuses, used offensive caricatures of a Native American, and opposed efforts by Stanford University to address sexual assault on campus by reforming the burden of proof, claiming “[e]xpelling students is probably not going to contribute a great deal toward a rape victim’s recovery.”

This is part of a disturbing pattern by the Trump Administration to nominate judicial appointments without a rigorous process to ensure we have qualified, non-ideological nominees in these lifetime appointments. Bound’s writings, as well as his failure to disclose these materials to the Oregon judicial selection committee, raise serious questions about his judgment and ability to serve on the federal bench. Moreover, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the largest circuit court covering nearly three-quarters of the United States’ public lands, serves a critical role in deciding some of our nation’s most important environmental cases.

For these reasons, LCV strongly urges you to oppose the judicial nomination of Ryan Bounds to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. We will consider including this confirmation vote in the 2018 Scorecard. If you need more information, please call my office at (202) 785-8683 and ask to speak with a member of our government relations team.

Sincerely,

Gene Karpinski

President