Russ Feingold

I rise today to offer some initial comments on the President's proposed budget for fiscal year 1999. As with any budget, there will be occasion to discuss and debate the many individual provisions it contains. I have already heard some…

I urged him to articulate clear criteria for the Democratic Republic of the Congo to gain U.

I believe, and I hope most of my colleagues believe, an electoral victory for Abacha would hardly represent a transition to democracy.

I asked that the President make clear the United States' unwavering support for democracy in the region.

I urged the President to take the strongest position possible in support of democracy in that country.

I intend to oppose H.R. 1119, the Department of Defense authorization bill for fiscal year 1998, and would like to take a few moments to explain my disagreement with this authorization bill. Mr. President, there are a multitude of reasons…

I am pleased, Mr. President, that several amendments I had planned to offer on the floor when the Senate took up this bill have been accepted by the chairman, Mr. Lugar, and the ranking member, Mr. Harkin, of the Agriculture Committee and…

I feel strongly that the pomp and ceremony of a state visit is inappropriate at a time when the human rights situation in China and in Tibet remains such a serious obstacle to good relations. Simply put, it is my view that an official…

on behalf of myself and the minority leader, the Senator from South Dakota, I would like to correct the statement made by the majority leader in the Record. The majority leader indicated that he and the Senator from South Dakota had an…

We will have a cloture vote that is purportedly on the issue of highway spending, but it is not about highway spending. It is not about transportation. It is not about investing in infrastructure. Those votes will come later. The vote we…

When a big corporate political donor is invited to press his company's case at the White House before the President, he is probably going to expect results. But the attempt by Federal Express to buy influence with the Clinton…

I would like to mention just a sentence from President Bush's letter, who I don't think is usually considered a pawn of the liberal media. He says: I would favor getting rid of so called ``soft money'' contributions but this principle…

what we have discovered, Senator McCain and I, the Senator from Arizona and I have discovered, is that there are a whole lot of businesspeople that are tired of being the fall guys of this system. Under the system, even with hard money…

We are pleased to join former Presidents Bush, Carter and Ford in expressing the hope that the current Congress enact meaningful bipartisan campaign finance reform legislation. This includes the names of people like the distinguished…

Let me be clear--the Weekly Standard was wrong. In fact, the September poll discussed never contained a direct question about campaign finance reform.

The article, of course, lays out the arguments about the issue of union dues. In fact, as is the practice of USA Today, they give an opportunity to the majority leader to respond within the article. But the subheadline sort of says it all…

If you listen to the opponents of this bill you can swear that is all McCain-Feingold is. But there are 25 other provisions that our opponents choose to ignore, because not only are they essentially noncontroversial provisions, they are…

Beyond the disclosure and enforcement, we also do something about the fact that we all know that incumbents have an advantage under the current system. Our system says that if people agreed to limit their personal spending to $50,000, they…

What is striking is that even the Weekly Standard believes that this issue has gone very high on the list of issues. Every measure that is being taken now does indicate a tremendous growth in the concern about this issue. I would be…

I guess I am delighted to see this kind of a headline, because I am not surprised. Most lobbyists do oppose campaign finance reform and the McCain-Feingold bill, because these folks are the folks I have come to regard, not as bad people…

Mr. President, it specifically provides for the ban of soft money which the Senator from Kentucky has denounced as an unconstitutional part of the McCain-Feingold bill. So this notion that somehow the Senator from Kentucky was not…

Let me quote what was said by this publication that is certainly no friend of the McCain-Feingold bill and, frankly, no friend of campaign finance reform. The article indicated that: Republican senators got an unwelcome jolt last week at…

that editorial identifies clearly the belief of most Americans that the purpose of this amendment is not necessarily to simply resolve this issue, although I am sure Members on the other side of the aisle, many of them, feel strongly about…

It was a unanimous decision, 9 to 0. The U.S. Senate, including yourself, voted overwhelmingly for something that in my view, was unconstitutional on its face. What was the downside of it? What happened? What happened was that the law was…

The ACLU felt that even the contribution limit, Mr. President, was a violation of free speech. They didn't win that one, but they won the rest of the case. Thurgood Marshall said spending is speech, and all nine Supreme Court Justices said…