Many politicians take to lucrative lobbying after they leave the United States Senate. Not Russ Feingold, the three-term senator from Wisconsin who will deliver the 22nd annual Leopold Lecture on Wednesday, Oct. 26, at Northwestern University.
Early this year and within weeks of leaving the Senate, Feingold announced the formation of Progressives United, a group with the goal of limiting corporate influence in Washington. Free and open to the public, Feingold’s speech on the Evanston campus will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Harris Hall Auditorium, 1881 Sheridan Road. A reception in the Leopold Room of Harris Hall will follow.
Feingold’s lecture, “While America Sleeps: A Wake-up Call for the Post-9/11 Era,” takes its name from his soon-to-be-published book from Random House. A recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, Feingold was ranked sixth in the Senate for bipartisan voting and earned a reputation in 18 years as one of the nation’s most liberal senators.
Progressives United is particularly concerned with what it sees as an opening of the floodgates of corporate influence since the controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision Citizens United v Federal Election Commission.
At Northwestern, Feingold will discuss political and economic policy today, explore what America has done wrong domestically and abroad since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and what steps must be taken to ensure that the next 10 years are focused on the international problems that threaten America and its citizens.
The Leopold Lecture was established in 1990 by former students of Richard W. Leopold, an eminent diplomatic historian and dedicated professor. For more than four decades, Leopold nurtured Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences undergraduates. The University’s Nicholas D. Chabraja Center for Historical Studies sponsors an undergraduate program that honors Leopold’s teaching and scholarship.
Past Leopold lecturers include McGeorge Bundy, George McGovern, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., Fareed Zakaria, Tom Daschle and Seymour Hersh.
For more about the Leopold Lecture, visit http://www.weinberg.northwestern.edu/ or call (847) 467-3005.