Russell Feingold

Former U.S. Senator (January 1993-January 2011)

(Jonathan Ernst/Getty Images)

Why He Matters

After 18 years as a Wisconsin senator, Feingold was ousted in 2010 by businessman and politcal neophyte Ron Johnson (R) in a competitive race in a bad environment for Democrats.

A progressive with an independent voting record, Feingold has taken firm stances against the Iraq war and for the restoration of civil rights. He cast the Senate's lone vote against the USA Patriot Act, voted against the Iraq war resolution, and was the first senator to call for a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal from that country. He challenged President George W. Bush at almost every turn, but has sometimes angered fellow Democrats by voting with Republicans.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Wisconsin state Senator (1984 to 1992); Attorney (1979 to 1985)
Birthday: March 2, 1953
Hometown: Janesville, Wis.
Alma Mater: University of Wisconsin-Madison, B.A., 1975; Harvard Law School; J.D., 1979
Spouse: Divorced

Religion: Jewish
Committees: Judiciary , Foreign Relations , Budget , and Intelligence Committees
State Offices:
Website

Path to Power

Feingold was born to Leon and Sylvia Feingold on March 2, 1953, in Janesville, Wis., where the Jewish family had lived for generations.

He was always an exceptional student. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he earned his B.A. with honors in 1975, Feingold was Phi Beta Kappa. He attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned his law degree, again with honors, at Harvard Law School in 1979.

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The Issues

Feingold voted with the majority of Democrats 79.9 percent of the time in the just concluded 111th Congress.

He is considered an independent voter who is liberal on cultural issues and foreign policy, but more moderate when it comes to the economy.

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Usually a reliable progressive, Feingold occasionally sides with Republicans. For example, he supports same-sex marriage, universal health care, and ending the death penalty, but was the only Democrat to vote against a motion to dismiss charges against President Bill Clinton in 1997 and was one of just eight Democrats who voted to confirm John Ashcroft as President George W. Bush's attorney general.

The Economy

In October 2008, Feingold opposed the $700 Wall Street bailout package.

"[The bill] fails to offset the cost of the plan, leaving taxpayers to bear the burden of serious lapses of judgment by private financial institutions, their regulators, and the enablers in Washington who paved the way for this catastrophe by removing the safeguards that had protected consumers and the economy since the great depression," Feingold said at the time.

He did, however, support an auto industry bailout, saying that if Congress was going to give money to Wall Street, it should also help regular Americans keep their jobs.

Feingold describes himself as a budget-hawk and has drawn ire from both parties for advocating such measures as ending automatic cost-of-living allowances for congressmen and instituting "pay-as-you-go" rules that would require the government to match spending increases with tax increases.

Campaign Finance Reform

In 1995, Feingold was approached by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) about working on campaign finance reform. Feingold jumped at the chance.

The resulting Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act had a few primary goals: to ban "soft money" - or unlimited donations - to political parties from corporations and unions, to impose limits on the money non-profit organizations can spend on advertising 60 days before an election, and to limit the amount political parties can spend to promote their candidates.

The ensuing legislation, which came to be known as the McCain-Feingold bill, failed to survive a Senate filibuster in 1996 and again in early 1998. Later in 1998, the House passed one version of the bill, but it was filibustered again in the Senate. The legislation finally gained momentum in the aftermath of the Enron collapse, and the bill was finally passed by both houses of Congress in March 2002. President George W. Bush signed it into law that same month, despite expressing concerns about the constitutionality of some portions.

McCain-Feingold has faced a number of legal challenges since it was signed into law. Most notably, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) challenged the law in McConnell v. FEC, a December 2003 U.S.Supreme Court case in which the high court upheld most of the McCain-Feingold bill by a 5-4 vote

In 2006 and 2007, Feingold worked with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to further ethics reform, including limits on gifts from lobbyists.

The Iraq War and its Aftermath

Feingold earned the distinction of being the only senator to vote against the USA Patriot Act in 2001, though perhaps it is not surprising that the chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution is an ardent civil-rights defender.

A year later, Feingold voted against the 2002 Iraq war resolution. He has been critical of the handling of the war ever since. Feingold was the first senator to call for setting a timetable to remove troops from Iraq.

He is expected to urge President Obama to roll back some of counterterrorism measures implemented in the Bush administration, such as domestic wiretapping and treatment of detainees some consider inappropriate and immoral.

The Network

Feingold told reporters that both Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) would make good presidents, but didn't endorse the Illinois Democrat until Obama clinched the Democratic nomination. Feingold did admit in February 2008, however, that he had voted for Obama in Wisconsin's Democratic primary. He said he would support either Democrat over his campaign finance reform ally McCain, a "good man" who "would not lead the country in the right direction."

Feingold's bipartisan partnership with Sen. John McCain is well-established. The two worked together on several incarnations of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which came to be known as the McCain-Feingold bill, between 1995 and when it passed in 2002. He also relied on his campaign finance reform co-sponsors in the House: Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.), who lost his 2008 reelection bid, and Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.), who retired from politics in 2007. Meehan is currently the chancellor of the University of Massachusetts - Lowell.

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