Russ Feingold Quotes

The goal isn't, and shouldn't be, to block Hillary Clinton. The goal is to make sure a potential President Clinton is beholden to a better Congress and a better Democratic Party.

When the President of the United States breaks the law he must be held accountable. That is why I am introducing today a resolution to censure George W. Bush…. At the very heart of our constitution is the assumption that some members of the government will do wrong, and when they do, others in the government must do right…. The President has broken the law. Congress must act…. Our job is not to stand up and cheer when the President breaks the law.

I don’t know why we expect perfection from our elected leaders.

As chair of the CBC, I will do all I can to be supportive of Congressman Conyers.

Congress does investigations better than they do anything else.

Congress needs to step up. Congress needs to do their job, and Congress needs to do their job now.

We want accountability. We just buried a president [President Gerald Ford] who did not hold another president [President Nixon] accountable for war crimes and that's why we're in Iraq right now. Our leaders who get us into these messes are the ones who need to be held accountable.

I would never want to see myself viewed as beating the drums of war, ... but I would rather live with that image than look into the mirror and see a member of Congress who failed to do his duty.

I think we need politicians; we need people who want to serve.

Congress should get the job done.

What's missing is leadership in the White House. And the story that Barack Obama does tell, forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting old. The man assumed office almost four years ago - isn't it about time he assumed responsibility?

I think the record shows that as Speaker, I have taken the lead in cleaning up politics.

There are, believe it or not, good politicians.

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

I have no intention of disowning my record as a member of the McGuinty government.

The duty of an Opposition is to oppose.

An urgent need exists for regular and responsible Congressional scrutiny of the Central Intelligence Agency. Such scrutiny is essential… Our form of government…is based on a system of checks and balances. If this system gets seriously out of balance at any point the whole system is jeopardized and the way is opened for the growth of tyranny…CIA is freed from practically every ordinary form of Congressional check. I agree that an intelligence agency must maintain complete secrecy to be effective. However, there is a profound difference between an essential degree of secrecy to achieve a specific purpose and secrecy for the mere sake of secrecy.

The President is accountable only to the country.

Oversight now is defined as going after political appointees.

It is not the Congress's job to rubber stamp bad decisions [of the President.]

I promise you the country would be in real trouble if I were really in the White House.

I am the only public servant and the only Mexican President ever who has made his finances public from before, during, and after public service.

Quite as important as legislation is vigilant oversight of administration; and even more important than legislation is the instruction and guidance in political affairs which the people might receive from a body which kept all national concerns suffused in a broad daylight of discussion .... The informing functions of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function. The argument is not only that a discussed and interrogated administration is the only pure and efficient administration, but, more than that, that the only really self-governing people is that people which discusses and interrogates its administration.

We are hiring too many people who are called politicians, and we are not holding them accountable…. You do not hire someone and not tell them what to do. Make a trip to Washington and see that they are doing what you want them to do.

Stop sending out press releases and start passing some bills...