In March 2011, five members of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia, including leader Francis Cox, were arrested for planning to kill Alaska State Troopers and a federal judge. The group—which had stockpiled firearms and explosives—advocated the violent secession of Alaska from the United States. Five days after Cox and his co-conspirators were arrested, Alaska Citizens Militia "supply sergeant" William Fulton disappeared—but not before signing over his two houses to Ross, who in 2009 shared the stage with Cox at a Peacemakers meeting. In July 2011, it was reported that authorities were looking for Fulton, who they believe supplied weapons to Cox’s militia.

During Ross’ 2009 confirmation hearings for the position of Alaska Attorney General, a woman testified that Ross made sexist comments at an Alaska Women and Children in Crisis panel discussion. Ross reportedly said that domestic violence was on the rise because the equal rights movement had emasculated men. He also opined that many allegations of domestic abuse are fabricated. Former Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Richard Burton called for Ross to withdraw his nomination and wrote a letter saying that Ross “speak[s] and act[s] like the kind of bully I met many times when responding to domestic violence calls—some of the most dangerous situations police officers are often in.”

In April 2008, Ross emailed then-Governor Sarah Palin to ask for “a personal favor.” Ross wanted the governor to get Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to issue a permit to a construction company owned by his friend, Rex Close. DNR had initially denied the permit because of environmental concerns (Close wanted to place an asphalt plant in the flood plain of a river). Palin had Randall Ruaro, her special assistant, look into the matter. Shortly thereafter, the Department of Transportation (DOT) helped Close appeal the permit denial. DOT officials told Palin’s staff that they were “very confident” the appeal would be successful. Palin told a staffer that she “really couldn't follow all that Ross was requesting help on” but had her staff work to assist him nonetheless.

In March 1993, Ross described gay individuals as “degenerates.” Commenting on a proposed ordinance that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, Ross said, “This bill seems to give extra rights to a group whose lifestyle was a crime only a few years ago, and whose beliefs are certainly immoral in the eyes of anyone with some semblance of intelligence and moral character.”

In 1991 at a meeting of Dads Against Discrimination at an Anchorage, Alaska Denny’s restaurant, Ross was overheard saying, “If a guy can’t rape his wife…who’s he gonna rape?” and “There wouldn't be an issue with domestic violence if women would learn to keep their mouth shut.”

In response to the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, Ross wrote a September 1989 op-ed titled “It’s Time We Quit Crying Over the Oil Spill.” “We see almost every day, the same films of what appears to be the same oil-soaked duck pulled out of the water,” he wrote. “The state claims to have a number of refrigerated vans filled with about 30,000 carcasses of waterfowl killed by oil. No doubt some of these birds were casualties of oil. But had several thousand people combed Prince William Sound for dead waterfowl any prior summer, as they did in the summer of 1988 [sic], there is no doubt that an equal number of dead birds could have been accumulated.”