Russ Feingold quotes

Russ Feingold is an American politician, best known for his tenure as a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin. He is recognized for co-authoring the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold Act) and for his independent, progressive positions. He has remained active in public service and advocacy after leaving the Senate. Here are 36 of his quotes:

Americans want to defeat terrorism and they want the basic character of this country to survive and prosper. They want both security and liberty, and unless we give them both, and we can if we try, we have failed.

Russ Feingold

The president and others say that if we leave, it will just be chaos in Iraq. Well, right now when you come to Iraq, you can't even drive from the airport to the Green Zone.

Russ Feingold

I strongly disagree with the President's characterization today of NAFTA as a "success", and with his call on Congress to pass CAFTA this year. These comments are out of touch with American businesses and workers who have been forced to compete on an uneven playing field for years under bad deals like NAFTA.

Russ Feingold

I'm one of the only members of the U.S. Senate who isn't a millionaire. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a millionaire. But there ought to be a little economic diversity in the Senate and I try to provide it.

Russ Feingold

What is the harm of doing the right thing? What is the harm of doing our job as legislators and making sure we do not stick the entire bankruptcy community with these provisions that do not make any sense?

Russ Feingold

I've been outspent by my opponents every time I've run for U.S. Senate.

Russ Feingold

For so many who had been driven from their office buildings, these five weeks were only the prelude to spending months cloistered in cramped and inadequate office space while they advised senators on some of the toughest calls they would ever have to make ... As the gap widened between perceptions of fear or danger in Washington and in much of the rest of the country, I believe it had a significant influence on why representatives reacted to terrorism concerns in a way that was fundamentally different from most of their constituents.

Russ Feingold

I would urge you to be as restrained as you can be as the next steps occur. I don't know exactly what they're going to be, this could be one of the most challenging times in the history of our country.

Russ Feingold

I voted against NAFTA, GATT, and Permanent Most Favored Nation status for China, in great part because I felt they were bad deals for Wisconsin businesses and Wisconsin workers. At the time I voted against those agreements, I thought they would result in lost jobs for my state. But, Mr. President, even as an opponent of those trade agreements, I had no idea just how bad things would be.

Russ Feingold

This conduct is right in the strike zone of the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Russ Feingold

The lesson from Charlottesville is not how dangerous the neo-Nazis are. It is the unmasking of the Republican party leadership. In the wake of last weekend's horror and tragedy, let us finally, finally rip off the veneer that Trump's affinity for white supremacy is distinct from the Republican agenda of voter suppression, renewed mass incarceration and the expulsion of immigrants.

Russ Feingold

In 2001, I first voted against the PATRIOT Act because much of it was simply an FBI wish list that included provisions allowing our government to go on fishing expeditions that collect information on virtually anyone. Today's report indicates that the government could be using FISA in an indiscriminate way that does not balance our legitimate concerns of national security with the necessity to preserve our fundamental civil rights. This is deeply troubling. I hope today's news will renew a serious conversation about how to protect the country while ensuring that the rights of law-abiding Americans are not violated.

Russ Feingold

We, as a Congress, have to stand up to a president who acts like the Bill of Rights and the Constitution were repealed on September 11.

Russ Feingold

Anything short of radical change to the Republican party's war on voters of color is merely feigned outrage. Even if the white supremacists are condemned, even if the entire Republican party rises up in self-professed outrage at white supremacists, if voter suppression and other such racist policies survive, the white supremacists are winning. And America is losing.

Russ Feingold

I don't want there to be a catastrophe, I hope there never is another one, there probably will be, but it is really terrible that we need, we seem to rely on very bad things happening in order to come together. We've got to do better than that.

Russ Feingold

I don't know how it could be more stark or clear: this entire society is being dominated by corporate power in a way that may exceed what happened in the late nineteenth century, early twentieth century.

Russ Feingold

Instead of taking a very high-paying type of law job or something that I might be able to do, I have been a legislator. That's what I do. I think it's an honorable profession - if you're honest and have integrity and work hard.

Russ Feingold

But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. And that would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.

Russ Feingold

There is nothing more American than peaceful protest.

Russ Feingold

It is not only all right but necessary to stand up to George Bush.

Russ Feingold

The Tea Party ended up being a shill for corporate America.

Russ Feingold

We should not use special budget procedures to jam through legislation to drill in the Arctic Refuge. This topic is too important to the public to address it in such a back-door manner. We should be having a full, open discussion of the issue during an energy debate.

Russ Feingold