The Supposed Sins of Russ Feingold
I’m a bit puzzled by the cover feature in the latest New Republic on Russ Feingold. It’s largely billed as exploding to his Dean-ish early followers who “know him for his lonely vote against the Patriot Act and for his call for a time-table for withdrawal from Iraq” … the parts that would break their heart. But I don’t get it. This is the Case Against Russ Feingold???
In Washington, Feingold has maintained his processorientation–to the frequent dismay of his fellow Democrats. The most obvious example is his relentless advocacy of major campaign finance reform in the late ’90s and early ’00s. When he teamed up with John McCain to pass new campaign finance restrictions a few years ago, many Democratic party officials felt near-panic over the legislation’s ban on “soft money” fund-raising by the national parties, a cash stream that was far more important to Democrats than to Republicans. (McCain-Feingold’s long-term effects are still uncertain, though the rise of Internet fund-raising has spared Democrats for now.) But Feingold didn’t care: This is a man who demanded that the Democratic party stop running ads in support of his own 1998 Senate campaign because he opposed soft money-funded ads in principle. “Get the hell out of my state with those things,” he said at the time. “It was kind of frustrating,” says his friend Newby of the afl-cio.
Within the Senate, some Democrats see Feingold as less a noble reformer and more a holier-than-thou prig. He once tried, unsuccessfully, to bar members of Congress from making personal use of frequent-flier miles earned on their official travels. He is totally ascetic about the influence of lobbyists and has fought to ban lobbyist gifts for lawmakers. He also requires his own staff to observe stricter limits than Senate rules dictate, forbidding them from accepting the most token gifts from outsiders. Even junior aides–including interns–are prohibited from snacking and drinking at the countless Capitol Hill receptions held by various trade associations and happily mobbed by hundreds of Hill staffers.
On its own, this would be enough to give Feingold a hall-monitor reputation. (“He’s like the kid in class who tattles on everyone else,” says one Democratic Hill aide turned lobbyist.) But maybe nothing annoys Feingold’s colleagues as much as his fights against annual cost-of-living raises granted to senators. Such raises now kick in automatically by law, but Feingold has tried to change that, and he routinely battles to force an invariably embarrassing Senate debate–and recorded vote–on them. “It’s not my favorite time of year in the Senate,” Feingold concedes. (Although Feingold is a pauper by Senate standards, he refuses pay raises and donates anything over his $162,100 starting salary for deficit reduction–more than $50,000 so far.)
He diligently guards against the Corruption of Lobbyist Money, and has alienated his Senate colleagues by being unscrupuosly CLEAN and uncorruptable? THE HORROR OF IT ALL! He’s facilitated a change in the Democratic process, moving the party from relying on huge money contributions to the smallest of Internet (grassroots) donors? GASP! Get me K Street please, and tear down the life support line of this Threat to our Psuedo-Democracy!! How deeply entrenched is the New Republic suckered into the rarefied air of Beltway Washington?
The other sins of Russ Feingold to a Democratic primary voter, and “Deaniac”: his demurring to the president on his nominations? That would be John Ashcroft and John Roberts. This would not be a problem if he were president, would it? Actually, I point out something else that is key: when he does oppose a nomination, it ends up carrying a lot of weight — which is to say JOHN BOLTON, who Bush ultimately was stuck recess-pointing into the UN.
I have one comment to make about this paragraph:
Maybe the ultimate Feingold heresy came during the 1998-1999 Clinton impeachment fight. When Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia offered a resolution to dismiss the charges against the president, every Democrat voted for the resolution but one: Feingold. Again, the issue was process. Feingold argued that Republicans deserved a chance to make their case and put it to a vote and that the Byrd resolution would “in appearance, and in fact, improperly short-circuit this trial” and “call the fairness of the process into question.” The vote was a disaster among his Democratic constituents, according to the Wisconsin Democratic Party chairwoman, who told The Washington Post: “We’re getting a lot of very upset people calling. … Elderly people crying, other people yelling. … They’re just mad as hell.” Feingold ultimately voted against impeachment. But watching him explain his interim vote promises to amuse. One adviser to a potential 2008 rival said he could envision cutting a “Feingold favored impeachment” ad. That’s hardly a winning position with the Democratic base–not to mention a touchy debating point on a stage with Hillary Clinton.
I point to a part of the Christopher Hitchens anti-Clinton book Nobody Left to Lie To, where a single Democratic Senator is having a trouble of conscience about how to vote on the Vote to Impeach Clinton, and is confiding in Chritopher Hitchens. He ultimately votes “no”, but I had wondered who the hell this could possibly be. I thought the only two Senators that would be travelling in Chritopher Hitchens’s circle would be Russ Feingold and Paul Wellstone (today, his cheerleading for the Iraq War has him the other camp)… does this signify anything? I don’t know.