by Corey Feuer
Former U.S. Senator and president of the American Constitution Society (ACS) Russ Feingold joined Vanderbilt students and local lawyers to discuss judicial corruption and the ACS’ recent advocacy efforts. Feingold served as a state senator in Wisconsin for ten years before serving in the United States Senate from 1993 to 2011. He later served as United States Special Envoy for the African Great Lakes and the Congo-Kinshasa under Secretary of State John Kerry. He became president of the ACS in February 2020.
In a moderated conversation with Vanderbilt Law professor Ganesh Sitaraman, Feingold spoke about judicial ethics and the politicization of the American judicial system. He also spoke about ACS’ efforts to diversify courts.
Court Ethics
Feingold voiced his disapproval regarding recent revelations that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted expensive vacations from a Republican megadonor. Sitaraman asked if it would make a difference to impose tighter ethics guidelines on the Court to prevent further corruption.
“Absolutely I think it would make a difference,” Feingold replied. “Congress can act on this and should threaten to act on this, including passing a requirement that the rules be followed.”
Feingold emphasized his belief in Congress as a regulatory body, suggesting Supreme Court ethics laws could be a point of bipartisan consensus.
“Congress,” he proclaimed, “has enormous power vis a vis the Court.”
Supremely Concerned
“Republicans stole the Supreme Court,” Feingold proclaimed about the Court’s current roster of justices.
He lamented what he considers a degradation of the Court’s authority over time.
“We grew up believing that [the Court] is a wonderful thing,” he said, pointing to rulings like Brown v. Board of Education (1954) as evidence of the Supreme Court’s ability to positively impact the country. “They had this huge power, but that was okay because they were supposed to follow precedent, and it seemed they were ruling on the cases themselves.”
Nowadays, Feingold suggested, such optimism about the nation’s most powerful judicial body is hard to come by.
“The Court has been largely delegitimized at this point,” he noted, “and ACS is very, very concerned about that.”
ACS in Action
Sitaraman asked Feingold if the ACS was the liberal answer to the conservative Federalist Society, a legal society that promotes originalism and is known for its influence over high profile conservative judicial appointments.
“We take pride in the fact that we’re doing something different,” Feingold responded. “It begins with the Constitution. ACS respects the fact that the President nominates and the Senate confirms.’”
Feingold touted ACS’s efforts to advise President Joe Biden on judicial nominations when he was elected in 2020.
“We had 400 dossiers ready to send to the transition team,” he recalled, noting that the organization had a day-to-day relationship with the White House counsel’s office.
Feingold noted that the ACS pays special attention to providing Biden with possibilities for diversifying the judiciary.
“[ACS] goes off to the community – to African American groups, to Latino groups, to LGBTQ groups, to union groups, and they say, ‘who is in this community that you would like to see [on the bench.’”
Ultimately though, Feingold told the audience, ACS considers itself only as advisors to the President.
“Our role is not to be cheerleaders to the Biden administration,” he asserted. “It’s to provide them with information.”