When it comes to the courts, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) fights dirty. During the Obama administration, Republicans withheld their “blue slips,” the slips each home state Senator uses to express approval of a nominee, to block judicial nominations. After D.C. Circuit Judge Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Grassley and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wouldn’t even give him a confirmation hearing.
Under the Trump administration, Grassley’s reversed course. He torched the blue slip process in January and steamrolled Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) over serious objections to a particularly unqualified judicial nominee in February. Now, he’s taken it one step further: Despite both Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Jeff Merkeley (D-OR) refusing to return blue slips, the GOP forged ahead, forcing a confirmation hearing.
Republicans used the blue slip process religiously, regardless of the nominee, the urgency of judicial vacancies, and the length of time since nomination. As People for the American Way pointed out:
Unilaterally changing the rules based solely on who it benefits is the antithesis of the rule of law, and it is toxic to a democracy. How ironic it is that this is happening in the Judiciary Committee, which is tasked to make sure our future judges will protect the rule of law.
The judicial nominee for which Grassley’s deviated so sharply, Ryan Bounds, is a true threat to the integrity of the judiciary. A nominee to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals—that’s Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, the Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, Washington—another cookie-cutter conservative jurist with no qualms about ruling on party lines instead of legal precedent.
Republican Congressmen Greg Walden, whose chief of staff is Bounds’s sister, called Bounds “the rare Oregonian with a sincere commitment to conservative jurisprudence.” As one Oregonian journalist wrote, “President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Ninth Circuit [Ryan Bounds] could act as an advocate for Trump’s immigration agenda, according to lawyers who know him.”
A group of “32 national, state and local advocacy organizations representing the interests of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and everyone living with HIV” wrote a letter enumerating—among other things—concerns stemming from his derogatory remarks about people of color, efforts to end discrimination, and opposition to addressing campus sexual assault.
The Alliance for Justice pulled out some of Bounds’s writing, and it sure seems like he may be the judge whose rhetoric and general views are closest to Trump. Bounds argued that affinity groups and their advocacy efforts “seem always to contribute more to restricting consciousness, aggravating intolerance, and pigeonholing cultural identities than many a Nazi bookburning.”
Not enough for you? Bounds actually opposes the existence of affinity groups on campus altogether: According to Bounds, the “existence of ethnic organizations is no inevitable prerequisite to maintaining a diverse community—white students, after all, seem to be doing all right without an Aryan Student Union.”
Bounds also bemoaned the plight of the white male—he was ahead of his time, really, but used language from another century—in decrying social justice proponents as believing their “opponent is the white male and his coterie of meanspirited lackeys: ‘oreos,’ ‘twinkies,’ ‘coconuts,’ and the like.”
Trump, McConnell, and Grassley want to fill the judiciary with white men just like Bounds. Or worse. They’re well on their way, and bragging about it. Reminder: Federal judges have lifetime appointments. Their rulings live on even longer.
Trump has made quick progress in reshaping federal appeals courts, winning Senate confirmation of 15 nominees to fill vacancies on federal appeals courts. Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama won confirmation of nine appeals court judges by the same point in his first term.
Trump also has been picking a raft of conservative jurists for lower federal courts and won Senate confirmation last year of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.
The regional appeals courts play a major role in shaping U.S. law. The judges hear appeals from federal district courts and usually have the final say, as the U.S. Supreme Court takes up only a tiny proportion of cases.
The appeals courts can set binding precedents on a broad array of issues, including voting rights, gun rights and other divisive social issues.
Now is the time to fight. Given the pace of confirmation, the mid-terms will be too late.