Bounds had been a nominee for a position as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, but his controversial nomination narrowly lost bipartisan support for confirmation in the Senate when it was revealed that, as an undergraduate, Bounds wrote columns criticizing outrage over vandalism of a gay pride statue.

Early in his career, Bounds served as a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1999 to 2000.

[6] In 2004, he was hired by the United States Department of Justice as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Chief of Staff in the Office of Legal Policy.

[13] However, the Senators continued to refuse to turn in their blue slips, citing college newspaper articles Bounds wrote while a student at Stanford University in the early 1990s.

[14] Prior to his nomination, Bounds did not disclose controversial columns written by him in The Stanford Review about campus sexual assault, workers' rights, ethnic minorities and gender discrimination to the Oregon judicial selection committee convened by the state's congressional delegation.

Bounds said he was instructed to provide only material dating back to law school to the selection committee by a staffer of Senator Ron Wyden, who had helped to convene the commission.