Page 4A
East Oregonian
Saturday, May 12, 2018
CHRISTOPHER RUSH
Publisher
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Managing Editor
TIM TRAINOR
Opinion Page Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Bounds and norms
At his confirmation hearing
Wednesday, Hermiston-raised
prospective judge Ryan Bounds had a
lot to answer to.
Bounds is President Donald Trump’s
nominee for a seat on the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the 9th Circuit —
a seat that has historically been set
aside for an Oregonian to fill. But
that’s where a problem arises. Oregon
has two Democratic Senators — Jeff
Merkley and Ron Wyden — while
Trump is a Republican and Bounds is a
conservative federal prosecutor.
In the past, home state senators were
given a sort of veto right over judicial
candidates they disagreed with. Called
blue slips, nominated parties would not
move forward without one of them.
In Bounds’ case, neither Merkley or
Wyden returned those slips. Yet it
appears Republicans, who outnumber
Democrats, will move forward over the
objections of Oregon’s senators.
“We’re making history — really bad
history, for this institution and for the
country and our Constitution,” said
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat
on the committee, about that decision.
Merkley and Wyden say their
opposition is about more than
philosophical differences. Opponents
Blue slips are little more than blue piec-
es of paper required for a nomination to
move forward.
dug up some really dumb and immature
op-eds Bounds wrote when a student
at Stanford in the 1990s, which rail
against multiculturalism, diversity
and sensitivity. They are bad takes
— but the kind of ill-thought, limited
perspective hot takes that dominate
plenty of student papers. He apologized
for them and denounced them at the
Wednesday hearing.
There are other things to discuss
under oath, too. Bounds has strongly
conservative judicial principals. He is a
member of the Federalist Society, and
serves as the president of the Portland
branch of that organization.
According to Rep. Greg Walden,
who nominated Bounds and is urging
his appointment, Bounds has also
volunteered his time to make legal
cases supporting immigration judges’
orders of removal for people illegally
in this country. That puts him square in
Trump’s corner on immigration issues,
but not in the best interests of his
hometown community.
Yet these are issues that should be
debated in the heat of a confirmation
hearing, where Bounds’ feet are held to
the fire and he must defend his opinions
and his judicial philosophy. We likely
think he’d win over a majority of
senators. If doing something dumb in
college was disqualifying, likely all of
us would be out of a job.
But the deeper issue remains. Should
blue slips be thrown out the window at
the same time Bounds is thrown onto
the 9th Circuit?
David Lat, a former federal law
clerk and prosecutor, believes so. He
wrote recently in a New York Times
column titled “Good riddance to ‘blue
slips,’” that the end of the practice —
while it will reduce the power of each
individual senator — will be a net
positive for the body as a whole.
He argues that the Senate has abused
the policy in recent years. Republicans
used it willy-nilly during the Obama
Administration, which kept the
president from filling judgeships for
years until a Republican took control of
the White House. And now Democrats
are returning the favor.)
But this tit for tat gumming up the
system has real world consequences
for our justice system. According to
Lat, as much as 20 percent of federal
judgeships are currently vacant. That’s
an unreasonable amount.
We understand the power of blue
slips. It helps us nearly guarantee that
at least one member of an extremely
important court will have an Oregon
voice. If blue slips go altogether, you
can see judicial power rushing toward
population centers and to loyalists
of whoever is in charge of the White
House when a seat is vacated.
The decision comes down to
deciding which principle is more
important: that a qualified judge be
given a hearing for an important
judicial position, even if he diverges
politically from his home-state
senators. Or if it’s more important that
local senators have the ability to protect
their seats, which helps in theory to
keep a diversity of backgrounds and
views on our federal courts.
We hope Bounds finds a way to be
confirmed and joins the 9th Circuit. But
we also don’t want it to be a Pyhrric
victory.
OTHER VIEWS
As he lay dying
teve Jobs had outlasted an
15 months after a brain cancer
initial death sentence — three
diagnosis. In between, he finished
to six months to live, the
a memoir of his life and passions,
doctors had said — when he told
sailed, spent long hours with those
Stanford graduates that the threat
who gave meaning to his life. His
of an early demise was perhaps
funeral was extraordinary. He was
the most liberating thing that ever
the only one of the four fabled
happened to him.
Timothy Kennedy brothers who would die
in old age, and he understood what
I was thinking of Jobs, who
Egan
that meant. “Every day is a gift,”
died seven years after a diagnosis
Comment
he said in the dying light.
of deadly pancreatic cancer, while
His brother John F. Kennedy,
watching the public tutorial of Sen.
like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther
John McCain going through what may be
King Jr., never had that luxury. Thomas
his final days.
Jefferson seemed to plan his death to
McCain is not just plotting the details
the day, leaving the planet on the 50th
of his own funeral, but living it. He’s
anniversary of the adoption of the
lucky. Most of us don’t get the chance
Declaration of Independence — the same
to tell friends and family members how
much we love them, to put things in order Fourth of July, in 1826, on which another
founder, John Adams, died. “Thomas
— and in return, to hear about what a
Jefferson survives,” were Adams’ final
difference our life made to them.
words, off by a few hours.
“Then I’d like to go back to our valley
Last words can be overrated. “I should
and see the creek run after the rain and
never have switched from Scotch to
hear the cottonwoods whisper in the
martinis,” said Humphrey Bogart. Or
wind,” said McCain in an excerpt he read
from his forthcoming book, “The Restless maybe not. Other accounts have him
calling out to his lovely wife, Lauren
Wave.” You could hear Hemingway, the
Bacall: “Goodbye, kid. Hurry back.”
senator’s favorite author, in those words.
What matters more are last acts. So
McCain says he may not live long
McCain has already lined up Barack
enough to see the book’s release date,
Obama and George W. Bush for eulogies
May 22. He has glioblastoma, an
at his memorial, while excluding President
aggressive brain cancer, though a recent
Donald Trump. He’s also making one
visitor said he was full of fight and vigor.
My mother died of the same thing. One last moral stand against torture and a
CIA nominee who refuses to universally
day, she was planning hikes in national
condemn it.
parks in the Southwest and pruning
And, like others who’ve seen death’s
lavender in the garden. Not long after,
door creaking open, McCain is trying to
she was having trouble keeping down a
separate the petty from the profound, the
milkshake, or turning over in bed. After
ephemeral from the lasting.
we realized that further chemotherapy
“The most obvious” response, wrote
would just be cosmetic, and add pain
neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi in “When
to her final days, she chose the McCain
Breath Becomes Air,” his memoir of
route — reflection, planning, settling of
a brilliant life cut short, “might be an
personal accounts. She told her life story
impulse to frantic activity: to live life to
to my daughter, and wrote each of her
seven kids a note, so that her words would the fullest, to travel, to dine, to achieve
a host of neglected ambitions.” But can-
outlive her.
cer limits the energy for compacted living,
For a public person, it’s different.
and a longer view takes hold. “Money, sta-
Of course you want your words to be
tus, all the vanities the preacher of Eccle-
immortal, worthy of being chiseled onto
siastes described hold so little interest; a
a statue or invoked during heady debate.
chasing after wind, indeed.”
McCain has a political legacy, much of it
Kalanithi died at the age of 38. McCain
good, some of it bad. Among other things,
is 81. Two ends of the spectrum. But it is
he will be remembered as a rare man of
honor at a time when the current president an ageless desire to want — and deserve
— what both men got as they closed
has no honor.
out their lives. Not politics. Not plati-
But this is not about that legacy. It’s
tudes. Not score-settling. As Joe Biden
about a way for people to set things right
explained, after his visit to the sylvan
in the closing days of life. “It is nothing
slice of heaven that is McCain’s ranch
to die,” wrote Victor Hugo. “It is frightful
in Sedona, Arizona: “I wanted to let him
not to live.” You can look at it the other
know how much I love him.”
way as well.
■
Teddy Kennedy spoke of wanting “a
Timothy Egan, New York Times
good ending for myself.” He slipped away
S
YOUR VIEWS
Salmon recovery fund
crucial to Oregon
Blue Mountain Land Trust works with
and for landowners across 10 counties
in Oregon and Washington. Two of
our most recent accomplishments are
securing funding to purchase conservation
easements on Canyon Creek Ranch near
the Painted Hills, and Bennett Ranch in
Baker County.
These conservation easements will
help ensure working lands stay working
in Eastern Oregon, because we value and
want to sustain the economic importance
of ranching in our communities. Moreover,
these conservation easements also help
sustain our clean air, clean water, wildlife
habitat, open space, and Oregon way of
life — which everyone benefits from.
But this important work is impossible
without public partnership, support, and
investment.
Public investment in conservation
occurs in many different ways in
Oregon. For example, Oregon Lottery
dollars and proceeds from the salmon
license plates are used by the Oregon
Watershed Enhancement Board to fund
grants for on-the-ground fish and wildlife
conservation. In addition, a federal
program known as the Pacific Coast
Salmon Recovery Fund supports salmon
recovery work in not just Oregon, but also
Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada,
and Alaska — the entire Columbia-Snake
basin.
Congress initiated the Pacific Coast
Salmon Recovery Fund in 2000 to
support thriving salmon runs that support
commercial and recreational fishing
businesses, and drive local economies.
Since 2000, Oregonians have used this
fund to invest $222 million in salmon
conservation and restoration projects
throughout our state. But we are far from
finished.
Salmon are an important resource both
locally and nationally. When we invest in
our lands and waters, we are investing in
our economy, our children, and our health.
We urge our elected officials to help us
ensure Oregon remains a great place to
visit, live, work, raise a family, and start a
business by supporting public investments
in conservation — including full funding
for the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery
Fund this year.
Tim Copeland, executive director
Blue Mountain Land Trust
Walla Walla
CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES
U.S. PRESIDENT
Donald Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
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express the opinions of the authors and
not necessarily that of the East Oregonian.
GOVERNOR
Kate Brown
160 State Capitol
900 Court Street
Salem, OR 97301-4047
503-378-4582
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