Sen. Russell Feingold (D) Elected 1992, 2d term up 2004
Born:	Mar. 2, 1953, Janesville
Home:	Middleton
Education:	U. of WI, B.A. 1975, Rhodes Scholar, Oxford U., 1977, Harvard Law Schl., J.D. 1979
Religion:	Jewish
Marital Status:	married (Mary)
Elected  Office:	WI Senate, 1982-92.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1979-83; Prof., Beloit Col., 1985-93.
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Russ Feingold is a Democrat first elected to the Senate in 1992. He grew up in Janesville and said he wanted to be a senator someday; his father ran for district attorney as a Progressive and once lost an election to the county board by one vote. Feingold nurtured his ambition at the University of Wisconsin, as a Rhodes Scholar, and at Harvard Law School; he moved to Middleton, a not-so-academic suburb of Madison, and beat an incumbent state senator in 1982, at 29, by 31 votes. Feingold has a flair for publicity, and for political reform issues and novel arguments. His great goal in the legislature was to ban the use of bovine growth hormones, a Luddite measure aimed at keeping in business Wisconsin's numerous and long-subsidized dairy farmers, whose chief problem is that Americans drink less milk today than in the 1950s while cows are much more productive. Feingold decided to run in 1992 for the Senate seat held by Bob Kasten, a free-market conservative who had won by narrow margins in 1980 and 1986. In the Democratic primary, while Milwaukee businessman Joseph Checota and Congressman Jim Moody battered each other with negative ads, Feingold ran clever, humorous spots: one showing Elvis, alive and endorsing Feingold; another showing Feingold at home, opening up a closet and saying, "No skeletons." He also had detailed position papers, including an 82-point plan for reducing the deficit. Near primary day, Checota apologized for his ads and asked voters to vote for Feingold if they didn't vote for him. Feingold, already ahead in polls, zoomed to an astonishing 70% win in this three-way race. Feingold also bounced way ahead of Kasten, who ran his own Elvis ads attacking Feingold on issues; Feingold attacked Kasten's negativity and avoided engaging on specifics. The race narrowed, but Feingold won 53%-46%.

In the Senate, Feingold has had a liberal record on cultural and foreign issues, somewhat more moderate on economics. He attacked many spending programs: the Pentagon's medical school, helium subsidies and the Supercollider; he moved to eliminate the Extremely Low Frequency radio system--"a Cold War relic" in his words--embedded in northern Wisconsin. Feingold did not respond in lockstep with other Democrats on the Clinton scandals. In February 1997 he called for an independent counsel on the Clinton-Gore fundraising operations. In January 1999 he was the only Democrat to vote against Robert Byrd's motion to dismiss the charges against Clinton. "I simply cannot say that the House managers cannot prevail," he said. He voted against removal in February.

Feingold has long said that the campaign finance system is "legalized bribery and influence-peddling"; democracy, he once said, "has been almost entirely corrupted in the last few years by soft money." In December 1995 he was surprised when John McCain called and asked if he would work with him against pork barrel spending--which McCain seems to regard as intended to please contributors, rather than voters. Out of this collaboration came the various versions of McCain-Feingold campaign finance bills, which were filibustered to death in July 1996 and in February 1998. The House passed one version in August 1998, but it was filibustered in the Senate in September. In October 1999 McCain-Feingold was again beaten, but McCain and Feingold did push through the bill requiring disclosure by Section 527 committees in June 2000. McCain's presidential campaign and his threats to bring up the issue at every turn forced Trent Lott to schedule two weeks of debate on campaign finance in March 2001. This time McCain and Feingold prevailed. They beat an amendment for lesser changes by Chuck Hagel by 60-40 and beat non-severability by 57-43, important because most senators considered at least some provisions constitutionally dubious. The bill passed 59-41 in April. In July it seemed about to come to the floor of the House, but the Republican leadership's rule was defeated and Speaker Dennis Hastert pulled it off the calendar. Then, after the Enron bankruptcy, pressure mounted. The bill's advocates got 218 signatures on a discharge petition and it was brought to the floor and passed. The Senate passed a final version in March. George W. Bush expressed doubts about the constitutionality of some provisions but signed it anyway, without ceremony and without inviting McCain and Feingold. Behind the scenes not all Democrats were happy; some thought it would hurt their party. At a Democratic Policy Committee lunch in July 2002, Hillary Rodham Clinton cited one provision. Feingold disputed her interpretation. She said, "Russ, live in the real world." He said, "I also live in the real world, Senator, and I function quite well in it." The argument switched to another venue in December 2002, when several plaintiffs challenged the bill before a three-judge federal court. In May 2003 the court, deeply divided, issued 1,700 pages of opinions and upheld some of the provisions but not others. The law requires the Supreme Court to review their decision; oral arguments are scheduled to take place September 8, 2003.

Feingold has pursued other ethics issues. He was one of the crusaders against lobbyists' gifts to lawmakers. He sought to prohibit members of Congress from using for personal travel frequent flier miles earned on business trips. He has tried to ban cost-of-living adjustments to congressional pay. In October 2001, even as he was seeking more debate on the Patriot Act, he once again objected. Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who had said he was "disappointed" with Feingold on the Patriot Act, said he was "very disappointed." Feingold said, "I am wondering when he will be very, very disappointed." He tried to attach repeal of the COLA to various measures and failed until he got a vote on it as an amendment to the homeland security bill in November 2002; it lost 58-36.

To the Patriot Act Feingold tried to offer amendments to limit secret searches, computer surveillance and roving wiretaps. Daschle got them all tabled, and Feingold cast the sole vote against the bill. That is not an unusual posture for him: he voted against the 1996 anti-terrorism bill and he was the only Democrat to vote against Robert Byrd's $15 billion homeland security package in 2001. He was the only Democrat on the Budget Committee to join Republicans and vote for five-year caps on spending in 2002. He has called for repeal of all federal death penalty statutes. He was one of eight Democrats who voted to confirm John Ashcroft; he argues that a president should be given great deference in Executive Branch appointments. But not in judges: he joined other Democrats in opposing Charles Pickering, Priscilla Owen and Miguel Estrada. In March 1999 he was one of three Democratic senators to vote against air strikes in Serbia and Kosovo. In October 2002 he voted against the Iraq war resolution, and argued that the administration had presented "confused" and "seemingly shifting" justifications. He objected when the Bush administration abrogated the ABM Treaty and argued that it could so only with the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate. He criticized the 2002 arms control treaty with Russia for having no timetable for reductions and no requirement that nuclear warheads be destroyed. As chairman of the Africa Subcommittee he traveled to Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique in February 2002; his visa for Zimbabwe was revoked by the Mugabe government. He argues that the U.S. must do more to encourage democracy and economic development in Africa.

Prompted by a complaint by a musician, he embarked on a crusade against Clear Channel Worldwide, which runs 70% of the pop music concerts and owns 10% of radio stations in the country. He argued that such companies are squeezing out artists and charging consumers high prices, and prepared a bill which would impose a freeze on the number of radio stations companies could buy and prohibit anti-competitive behavior. He and Herb Kohl secured $15.9 million to attack Chronic Wasting Disease, which has afflicted deer in woods west of Madison. He has opposed the Northeast Dairy Compact and wants to change the milk marketing system to provide Wisconsin dairy farmers a level playing field.

Feingold has made it a practice to hold listening sessions in all 72 Wisconsin counties every year, speaking for five minutes and then taking all questions. And he has submitted voluntarily to some of the campaign restrictions he sought to place on all candidates. In 1998 he faced a strong opponent in Congressman Mark Neumann, a conservative elected in 1994 who proposed to reserve all the budget surplus for paying down the national debt and retain money for Social Security--similar though not identical to Feingold's views--and touted his independence by saying he had been thrown off an Appropriations subcommittee for voting against the leadership. After some negotiation, they agreed to limit their campaign spending, Feingold to $3.8 million, Neumann to $4.7 million (he actually spent $4.4 million), and to limit PAC money to 10% of donations and out-of-state contributions to 25% and to impose a $2,000 limit on candidate contributions (more of a handicap for Neumann, a self-made home-builder millionaire, who spent $700,000 of his own money on a losing race in 1992). To Democrats who complained that Feingold was risking his seat in a race that was close in the polls, he said, "The issue is my issue now. We're on my playing field. Is Wisconsin going to become another state where money rules?" The NRSC, then headed by Mitch McConnell, who led the fight against Feingold's campaign finance bill, spent heavily on this race, running anti-Feingold ads. But when the DSCC starting running anti-Neumann ads, Feingold responded: "Get the hell out of my state with those things"; the ads continued until the buy was finished. Neumann argued that Feingold's stand was hypocritical, since the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters and AFL-CIO all spent heavily on ads against Neumann. Republican attacks dominated the TV screens in August and into September; Feingold's leads of 10% or so melted away and the race became about even. Neumann ran humorous ads attacking Feingold for sending dollars to Russia to study monkeys in space and for voting for a study of cow flatulence (the ad showed smock-clad scientists out in a field trying to isolate samples of cow gas). In one of the nation's closest Senate races, Feingold won 51%-48%. This was not a big-city victory: metro Milwaukee voted for Feingold by only 50%-49%. His biggest margin came in Madison's Dane County, and he carried and ran ahead of Democratic norms in most counties in the Madison media market and along the Mississippi River--where Al Gore would run well in 2000 and Jim Doyle in 2002--as well as in the Democratic Lake Superior counties. Neumann ran only about even in his own 1st District, but ran well ahead in the prosperous Fox River Valley and the Lake Michigan counties.

In 2001 Feingold talked occasionally about running for president; in the fall he made a campus speaking tour. But he said it was unlikely and that he would decide by his 50th birthday in March 2003. He spent that evening at the Harmony Bar in Madison and, as he put it, "I turned to a couple of friends and family members and said, 'By the way, I'm not running for president in 2004.' They said, 'OK. Fine. Now listen to the band.'" All along he had said it was "extemely likely" that he would run for reelection in 2004. After the Democrats' setbacks in November 2002 he said, "To sort of act like, 'Oh, gee, a few things kind of went bad, and we just lost by a few votes here and there,' to me, that's a failure. … Let's admit we made some mistakes." He said Democrats should be "progressive" and at the same time "deficit hawks." Feingold's 1998 numbers and his job rating--48% positive in February 2003--made many Republicans think he might be vulnerable. But few seemed to want to run against him. Congressman Paul Ryan of the 1st District ruled it out adamantly. HHS Secretary and former Governor Tommy Thompson has never shown any interest in running for the Senate. In March 2003 Neumann said he would not run and recommended former Lieutenant Governor Margaret Farrow. But she said, "I just don't see at this point doing it." The closest thing to a declared candidate at the time was state Senator Robert Welch, who lost 58%-41% to Herb Kohl in 1994. A straw poll taken by WisPolitics.com at the Republican state convention in May 2003 showed Farrow winning 109 votes and Welch 55 out of 278 cast; Farrow said she might be a little more interested.

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DC Office
506 HSOB 20510, 202-224-5323; Fax: 202-224-2725; Web site: feingold.senate.gov

State Offices
Green Bay, 920-465-7508; LaCrosse,608-782-5585; Middleton,608-828-1200; Milwaukee,414-276-7282; Wausau,715-848-5660.

Committees

• Aging (Special).
• Budget.
• Foreign Relations: African Affairs (RMM); East Asian & Pacific Affairs; International Operations & Terrorism.
• Judiciary: Administrative Oversight & the Courts; Antitrust, Competition Policy & Consumer Rights; Constitution, Civil Rights & Property Rights (RMM).

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	90	80	75	88	99	0	43	20	5	14	--
2001	95	--	92	75	--	--	17	29	20	--	20

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	79%	--	19%		73%	--	20%
Social	65%	--	32%		82%	--	0%
Foreign	60%	--	40%		85%	--	12%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 2. Expand Patients' Rights Y 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Permit ANWR Development N 5. Confirm Ashcroft as AG Y 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. $ for Hate Crime Prosecution Y  8. Overseas Military Abortions Y  9. Bar Coop. with Intl. Court N 10. Trade Promotion Authority N 11. Authorize Force in Iraq N 12. Homeland Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
1998 general	Russell Feingold (D)	890,059	51%	$3,846,089
	Mark W. Neumann (R)	852,272	48%	$4,373,953
1998 primary	Russell Feingold (D)	unopposed
1992 general	Russell Feingold (D)	1,290,662	53%	$2,056,079
	Robert W. Kasten Jr. (R)	1,129,599	46%	$5,427,163