Russ Feingold

Russ Feingold represented Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate for three terms, from 1993 to 2011. Two records account for most of his presence in accounts of American political discourse: he was the first cosponsor of the Senate bill that became the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, the statute at issue in Citizens United v. FEC; and on 25 October 2001 he cast the only vote in the Senate against the USA PATRIOT Act.

Before the Senate

The Congressional Directory records that Feingold was born in Janesville, Wisconsin, on 2 March 1953. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1975, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford in 1977, and took a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1979. He practised law in Madison at Foley & Lardner and at LaFollette & Sinykin from 1979 to 1985, and served in the Wisconsin State Senate from 1983 to 1993.

Election and Senate Service

Feingold was elected to the U.S. Senate on 3 November 1992, defeating the incumbent Robert W. Kasten, Jr. The FEC’s official compilation gives the result as 1,290,662 votes (52.57 percent) to 1,129,599 (46.01 percent). He was re-elected twice and served until 2011.

In the 111th Congress he sat on the Budget, Foreign Relations and Judiciary Committees and on the Select Committee on Intelligence. During the 2001 PATRIOT Act debate he identified himself on the floor as chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s Constitution subcommittee.

He lost his seat at the general election of 2 November 2010 to Ron Johnson, 1,125,999 votes (51.86 percent) to 1,020,958 (47.02 percent).

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act

On 22 January 2001 Senator John McCain introduced S. 27, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001, “for himself, Mr. Feingold” and sixteen other senators. Feingold’s position as first cosponsor on that line is the record behind the “McCain-Feingold” shorthand. The Senate passed S. 27 as amended on 2 April 2001 by 59 to 41 (Rollcall Vote No. 64).

The measure that reached the President was the House vehicle, H.R. 2356. On 20 March 2002 the Senate invoked cloture on it by 68 to 32 (Rollcall Vote No. 53) and passed it by 60 to 40 (Rollcall Vote No. 54). It was enacted on 27 March 2002 as Public Law 107-155.

Citizens United

Section 203 of the Act amended 2 U.S.C. §441b to bar corporations and unions from using general treasury funds for “electioneering communications” — broadcast, cable or satellite advertising naming a federal candidate within a set window before an election. In McConnell v. FEC, 540 U.S. 93, the Supreme Court upheld those limits against a facial challenge.

In Citizens United v. FEC, argued 24 March 2009, reargued 9 September 2009 and decided 21 January 2010, the Court overruled that part of McConnell and held that the government may not bar independent political expenditures by corporations and unions. The decision struck down the provision Feingold had cosponsored, in the final year of his Senate service.

The Vote Against the USA PATRIOT Act

On 25 October 2001 the Senate took up H.R. 3162, the USA PATRIOT Act. The Congressional Record for that day shows final passage as Rollcall Vote No. 313: 98 yeas, 1 nay, with Senator Landrieu recorded as necessarily absent. The single nay was Feingold’s.

His floor statement, delivered before the vote, set out his reasoning in his own words. He described his “first and most powerful emotion” after the September 11 attacks as “a solemn resolve to stop these terrorists,” while arguing that “we must give them only those extraordinary tools that they need and that relate specifically to the task at hand.” He quoted Justice Brandeis’s 1928 dissent on the progress of government surveillance technology, and the exchange in A Man for All Seasons in which Thomas More asks whether Roper would “cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil.” He closed: “That is what I have tried to do with the anti-terrorism bill, and that is why I will vote against this bill when the roll is called.”

After the Senate

According to the American Constitution Society, Feingold served as U.S. Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region of Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2013 to 2015, taught at the Stanford, Yale, Marquette and Harvard law schools, and was president of the American Constitution Society from March 2020 to March 2025. He co-authored The Constitution in Jeopardy (2022).

What Is Not Established Here

The page previously described Feingold as having “co-authored” the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. The documentary record establishes cosponsorship — he is the first name after McCain’s on the introduction line of S. 27 — and the Act was enacted through a House vehicle, H.R. 2356, rather than through the Senate bill. The page now says cosponsor and names the vehicle. The stub: true flag was removed because the page is no longer a stub.

Not asserted here, for want of a source fetched and read in this pass: any characterisation of his politics or of where he sat on a spectrum; the margin or causes of the 2010 defeat beyond the certified vote totals; his 2016 rematch against Ron Johnson; the political committee he formed after leaving the Senate; his votes on the Iraq War authorisation and on the death penalty, which the ACS bio summarises but which this page does not cite roll calls for; and his role in the 2005-2006 PATRIOT Act reauthorisation debates. Each of those is checkable against the Congressional Record and FEC filings, and should be added only with the roll call or filing attached.