Et Tu, Feingold? - Senator Russ Feingold supports confirmation of John Ashcroft as Attorney General

Progressive, The, March, 2001 by Ruth Conniff

A lot of people were left scratching their heads after Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, supported the confirmation of his rightwing former colleague John Ashcroft as Attorney General. For one thing, progressive groups had chosen the Ashcroft nomination as a major rallying point. And then there was the fact that even Feingold acknowledged Ashcroft's reprehensible record: his aggressive tactics to block gay and black federal appointees, his hostility to civil rights, and his anti-abortion extremism.

Why would Feingold, the progressive, pro-choice, pro-civil-rights, anti-death-penalty Senator, stand up for Ashcroft's confirmation? And what does Feingold's bipartisan gesture say about the Democratic Party as a whole?

Feingold argues that it was important to the legitimacy of the process not to let the Ashcroft nomination become a matter of ideology or partisan politics. He said it was a matter of constitutional principle and longstanding practice in the Senate to confirm nominees who are qualified and not legally or ethically challenged, regardless of their politics. Although, as he put it, "a reasonable person could conclude he couldn't enforce the law," Feingold concluded Ashcroft would uphold his oath to be fair and impartial.

"I believe we have to hold the line and not use ideology alone in making decisions about cabinet appointments," Feingold says. Otherwise, "I fear if we keep going, more and more areas of our government are going to fall into the Great Divide and be engulfed in a culture war."

Liberals could not be confirmed, either, if Republican Senators applied an ideological litmus test. By offering what he calls "an olive branch" to the Republicans, Feingold says he is setting precedent for a progressive administration of the future.

Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, doesn't buy it. "I think he's confusing an olive branch with a fig leaf. He needs to go back to botany class," Frank growls. "This one-sided extension of an olive branch makes no sense. The nomination of Ashcroft was a declaration of war."

As for the idea that Ashcroft will do his duty and uphold the law, Frank points out that Ashcroft will have broad discretion. "The Attorney General has a lot of small decisions to make," says Frank. "Should gay people get asylum? Should a federal sex-crimes register include people who are arrested for consensual sex acts?"

Feingold knows that many of his Democratic constituents were upset with his vote. Especially in the urban areas of his state, Feingold says, "there were lots of people who were confused and hurt, not understanding why I would vote the way I did until I explained it to them." But he notes that in his "listening sessions" around the rest of Wisconsin, "many people were glad I took an independent stand."

"Independent" is the key word here.

If Feingold chafes Democrats, he, like his friend and fellow campaign finance reformer John McCain, Republican of Arizona, has built a constituency among independent voters who admire his maverick stands. This independent constituency is much on the minds of Washington politicos these days.

"Democrats and Republicans don't determine elections anymore," says Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, Democrat of the District of Columbia. "Independents do."

"Bipartisanship" is now a buzzword for politicians eager to step outside party lines.

"We have an obligation to our nation to be bipartisan when we can," says Feingold.

Other progressive legislators vehemently disagree. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., Democrat of Illinois, wrote an op-ed recently calling Democratic proponents of bipartisanship "Bush's Democrats." Jackson has vowed to hold every Democrat who voted for Ashcroft's confirmation accountable in the upcoming elections. He sees the trend toward bipartisanship and centrism in his party as a slippery slope: "A conservative Democrat, Bill Clinton, in 1992 selected an even more conservative running mate, Al Gore, who in 2000 selected an even more conservative running mate, Joseph Lieberman. By helping to shift the Democratic Party and the country further right, a very conservative George Bush could select an ultraconservative Dick Cheney as his running mate--and win."

Bipartisanship is a sign of the Democrats' weak progressive values, Jackson argues. Democrats' drift to the center is the reason Ralph Nader was able to draw votes away from Al Gore, he says. And when Bush touts bipartisanship, what he's really talking about is a coalition built on white racism, he adds. Southern Democrats were, after all, the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation. With this history, it's no surprise they don't mind making common cause with the party of Ashcroft. "It is this legacy of conservative, Southern Democrats in Congress with whom Bush intends to work," Jackson says.

Russ Feingold does not fit that model, however. Not only is he a progressive, Midwestern Democrat, he justifies his vote for Ashcroft precisely because he opposes the centrist drift of the Democratic Party. If Ashcroft could be blocked on ideological grounds, he argues, so could progressives like Ramsey Clark or Ted Kennedy, whose values are left of center on issues like the death penalty.