Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, soon, the Senate will vote on the Ryan Bounds nomination, and I want to make sure each Member of the Senate is aware of two important issues as they prepare to cast their votes on the Bounds nomination to serve on the Ninth Circuit.

First, Mr. Bounds flagrantly misrepresented his background to our bipartisan Oregon judicial selection committee. This is the committee that was tasked with vetting his nomination--a process I have worked on with Republicans for literally two decades. I was pleased to work with our former colleague Senator Smith on this. I worked with the late Mark Hatfield on this. Now it is a pleasure to work with Senator Merkley, and the bipartisan efforts we have had produced this selection, a process. Mr. Bounds misrepresented--in my view, really lied--as he covered up disturbing, intolerant writings from his past.

Among many hateful matters he wrote about, he defended homophobic vandals who damaged a gay pride monument. He argued against efforts to protect the survivors of sexual assault on college campuses because, he wrote, he didn't think that would guarantee absolute safety.

As I indicated earlier, what outraged me, and shocked me, was his comparison of organizations that promote multiculturalism and tolerance in America to Nazi rallies. I am the child of Jewish parents who fled Nazi terror in Germany. Not all of our family got out. My great Uncle Max was among the last to be gassed at Auschwitz. For Mr. Bounds to compare groups that lift up minorities in America to Nazis is an extraordinary and dark stain on his character. For him to have concealed these writings from Oregon's bipartisan selection committee is disqualifying.

He never acknowledged these writings until they were uncovered and then posed a threat to his nomination. To this day, he has not fully recanted the abhorrent views that are reflected in that content. Five of the seven members of the bipartisan judicial selection committee, including the Chair, said recently they would not have included Mr. Bounds among their recommended candidates had they known about the writings as he was vetted.

Our bipartisan committee forwarded Mr. Bounds' name, along with others, as part of this process, and they said if Mr. Bounds had been straight with them, he would have told them about these offensive writings, but he misled them by keeping that secret.

The second issue, this is the first time in the 101-year history of what is called the blue-slip process where a nomination moved forward without a blue slip from either home State Senator. Senator Merkley and I withheld our blue slips specifically because of what I described, these lies about omission. We didn't consent to a hearing, a debate on the floor, but Chairman Grassley and Majority Leader McConnell barreled right ahead.

Leader McConnell even told the New York Times that blue slips ought to be viewed as nothing more than an indication of how Senators might vote on a given nominee. That was not the tune Republicans were singing in 2009. Democrats then occupied the Oval Office, held the gavel of the Judiciary Committee, and every Member--every Member--of this body who sat on that side of the Chamber in the Republican conference sent a letter to President Obama and then-Chairman Leahy saying that the nomination's process was ``needlessly acrimonious.'' They wanted to return to an era of bipartisanship. Then, they said:

We hope your Administration will consult with us as it considers possible nominations to the federal courts from our states. Regretfully, if we are not consulted on, and approve of, a nomination from our states, the Republican Conference will be unable to support moving forward to that nominee.

In 2009, while in the minority, everyone who sat on that side of the Chamber rushed to defend blue slips as a statement of senatorial courtesy and collegiality. What a difference a few years makes.

What is happening now cheapens the advice and consent role of the Senate, something delegated to us by the Founding Fathers. The White House wants the Senate to act as a rubberstamp on whatever nominees are sent our way. The majority seems perfectly willing to go along with that.

My colleagues on the other side need to be aware of the new reality-- this new reality where the blue slips don't matter--they are creating. This is going to be the end of the blue-slip process as it has worked in the Senate to promote good government on both sides of the aisle. This breach of a century of bipartisan protocol is going to further drive the judiciary to the partisan extremes.

As we consider this nomination in a few minutes, this means lights- out--lights-out--for this important bipartisan tradition. The nominee we will be voting on concealed disturbing, intolerant writings from his past, misleading the bipartisan committee that reviewed his candidacy. Moving his nomination forward, in the face of that information and without the blue slips from Senator Merkley and myself, destroys more than a century of bipartisan tradition and certainly expands the power of the executive branch of the President.

What we learned earlier this week is it would take only one U.S. Senator on the other side--of all the people sitting over there, it would take only one to stop this abomination of a process. I hope one of my colleagues will be swayed by the horrendous writings Mr. Bounds lied to conceal.

This has been a sad moment for the Senate and a rejection of the kind of bipartisanship this body ought to bring to judicial nominations, the kind of bipartisanship I have been honored to be part of in Oregon for two decades. I urge my colleagues to vote no on the Bounds nomination.

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