Interview with Russ Feingold, By Josh Caplan and Maya Khan
Abstract
The Georgetown Public Policy Review had the opportunity to speak with former US Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) on a wide range of issues. Sen. Feingold served in the Senate from 1993 to 2011 after having spent 10 years in the Wisconsin State Senate. After losing his 2010 reelection campaign to Republican Ron Johnson, he founded Progressives United, a 501(c)4 political action committee (PAC) devoted to facilitating grassroots mobilization. As a senator, he was known for being on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party yet able to broker bipartisan deals on challenging issues. He worked with future Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) to reform the campaign finance system with the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (also known as the McCain-Feingold Act). In 2001, he was the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act, arguing that the anti-terrorism legislation unnecessarily violated the civil liberties of innocent Americans. Since his time in the Senate, he has been a visiting professor at Marquette University Law School and the Mimi and Peter Haas Distinguished Visitor and lecturer at Stanford Law School. He also served as a co-chair of President Obama’s reelection campaign. He spoke with The Review about all of these endeavors as well as how he was able to come together with ideological opposites, compromise, and pass legislation.