Leadership Quote by Russ Feingold

Feingold is doing something rarer than partisan sniping: he is indicting the machinery of lawmaking itself, and he does it in the Senate's native language of dignity and procedure. The opening clause, "not been a legislative process worthy of the Senate", isn’t just disappointment; it’s an accusation that the institution is violating its own brand. The Senate sells itself as the deliberative chamber, the place where haste is shaved down into legitimacy. By framing the failure as unworthy, Feingold turns process into a moral category.

The line’s real bite is in the chronology: first, members are "implored" to hold their amendments; then, once on the floor, they’re told amendments are impossible. That sequencing reads like a bait-and-switch, and Feingold wants you to feel the con. "Implored" signals pressure, not mere suggestion, hinting at backroom management and leadership muscle. "Told" keeps the agents conveniently vague, implying a system where accountability evaporates into procedure.

Context matters: Feingold built a reputation as an institutionalist willing to break with his party, and this complaint is a defense of transparency as a democratic safeguard, not a nicety. Subtext: if amendments are barred at both committee and floor, debate becomes theater and outcomes become prepackaged. He’s warning colleagues and the public that legislation passed this way may be legal, but it won’t be legitimate in the civic sense - and that’s how trust in governing bodies gets quietly shredded.