Every year Senator Russ Feingold holds listening sessions in all of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. Under dreary midwinter skies, two hundred people crowded into the Mazomanie Community Center in rural Dane County, Wisconsin, on February 22 to chat with their junior senator.

I caught up with Feingold before the session started. (In fact, I may have been the only member of the press there until Molly Stentz, news director at WORT-FM, Madison’s community radio station, showed up.)

The Progressive: What are you hearing at your other listening sessions?

Feingold: Most of the comments at 27 listening sessions already this year have been about health care, but not exclusively. People are asking about cap and trade, about government spending, but health care is still the biggest.

The Progressive: What’s your opinion on the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United case?

Feingold: Terrible decision. One of the most lawless decisions in the history of this country and of the Supreme Court. It throws open our political process to huge corporations including foreign money. Unfortunately the only thing that basically is still standing is the McCain-Feingold bill that I wrote. But that’s not enough. That just has to do with direct contributions. This creates a massive transfer of power to large corporations. It’s a real threat to our democracy. In fact, I am noticing that people all across the political spectrum, other than apparently the Republican Party, agree that it’s a bad decision.

The Progressive: How will this affect your re-election campaign?

Feingold: I’m not concerned about that. I’ve been outspent every single time. That’s not the issue. The issue is the taking away of democracy from the average citizen.

The Progressive: What do you think of the Move to Amend group, the people who are organizing to change the Constitution to address issue of campaign contributions?

Feingold: I don’t think the way to do it is by amending the Bill of Rights. I oppose that and I think that’s unwise but I certainly understand the sentiment. The best thing to do is to get new justices, different justices, who will do the right thing. They completely ignored the judgment of the Supreme Court from two years ago. So, really, this is a lawless thing by people who pledged to follow precedent. I also am open to legislative changes that will help. But in the end we need these decisions reversed back again.

The Progressive: When will the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq end?

Feingold: Iraq is under way; it’s not as fast as I’d like, but it’s starting. And Afghanistan I’m very worried about. I think we’re moving in the wrong direction. I’m very concerned about that and we need to push hard against the [Obama] Administration on that particular thing.

It’s too bad that no television crews were around to capture this animated town hall. It was an older crowd, though some young women wearing bright pink T-shirts stood out in the back. Mazomanie lies about 45 minutes northwest of Madison, but that didn’t stop a contingent of AARP folks from the state’s capital from showing up.

Health care dominated the debate. Person after person stood up and talked about the dire need for reform. One woman said she was at the point where she had to choose between food and medicine. An unemployed architect was worried about COBRA running out. We need help now, he said, adding he was dipping into his 401(k) to pay for his insurance. Robin Transo runs a free clinic in Crawford County and she talked about the need for preventative care. Her clinic served 850 people last year and gave 450 kids access to dental care.

The majority of attendants supported single payer and asked the Senator to be a vocal advocate for it. Feingold said that he is fighting for public option in closed door meetings. “Frankly, something as big as this, we’re much better off if we’re bipartisan,” said Feingold. He admitted that single payer is a better option “but we don’t have the votes.”

A few people said it was time for the Democrats to “start playing tough,” which was met with applause. There’s a growing sentiment across the country that government can’t do anything, one guy said. Where is the push back from the Democrats?

“I do push back,” said Feingold. “And I’m not a big government guy. I think government should stay out of things unless it has to get in. But for me to have to listen to people who are on Medicare saying that ‘it’s terrible that the government wants to get involved in health care,’ and ‘don’t touch my Medicare,’ is absurd. That’s what we’ve had to put up with. And here’s the other thing I really find fascinating. People are saying they are so worried about big government. Where were these people for eight years when I was trying to point out the big government intrusion in our lives through the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping?” [more cheers]

“Why was there no interest in the abuses of big government then?” he asked. “When a government abuses its power and goes into areas it doesn’t need to belong in, I’ll be the first to call them on it. But I will defend the VA, I will defend Medicare, I will defend Social Security. There’s a serious proposal out there being endorsed by many Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, that saying anybody under 55 will no longer be eligible for Medicare and Social Security as a public program That is their agenda, honestly stated. And I disagree.”

While health care seemed to be on everyone’s mind at this listening session, people brought up other concerns, including the need for strong environmental protections, the plight of local dairy farmers, and unfair trade practices. When asked about President Obama’s commitment of $8 billion for new nuclear reactors, Feingold said he was “not a fan” of Obama’s position, noting that Wisconsin could be a disposal site for radioactive waste.

Dr. Gene Farley, 83, has been a staunch advocate for universal single-payer health care for decades. He asked the first question: “How do we get health care reform passed this time, even though it’s not necessarily the one I want? We have to have it.”

“I think single payer is much better than the current system. I don’t back off from saying that. But obviously we do not have the votes to do this now,” said Feingold. “Gene Farley is my test. If Gene Farely is willing to say we’re going to do something less than single payer, and he doesn’t want to say it, I’m going to say it too. I’m worried only a comprehensive system can actually provide the savings and controls that we need.”

I spoke to Dr. Farley afterward. “I’m a great admirer of Russ. I don’t always agree with him. I feel he’s very ethical,” said Farley. “Most of the time I support him. Sometimes I’d love to push him. His strength is he’s not always pushable; his weakness is he’s not always pushable. But he’s good.”

I asked him if he wanted health care legislation to pass. “Obviously I’m for single payer,” he said. “I feel strongly that we have to pass what’s there now. . . . If we can pass this bill, however incomplete it is—it has a lot of good things in it—then we get a building permit. Once you have a building permit you can start building and you can modify the blueprints as you go along and make improvements. My goal is the nearer single payer we get, the better. I want that building permit.”

As President Obama guarantees $8 billion in loans to build the first U.S. nuclear power plant in nearly three decades, states are getting into the act, too.

Here in Wisconsin, nuclear power is tucked into state legislation called the Clean Energy Jobs Act.

“About 95% of the bill is great. The major portion of the bill talks about setting the first ever energy efficiency standards for Wisconsin and also boosting the use of renewable energy sources in the state,” says Diane Farsetta, the Carbon Free, Nuclear Free campaign coordinator with the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice.

“The problem is it would also gut the protections that we have had on the books for twenty-five years.”

Currently, Wisconsin law says that new nuclear reactors can’t be built here unless there is a federally licensed repository to permanently store the toxic radioactive waste that nuclear reactors produce. That type of facility doesn’t exist, so radioactive waste is piling up at the two working and one defunct nuclear reactor sites. Changing this law could allow more nuclear waste to pile up.

The Clean Energy Jobs Act is based on recommendations of the Governor’s global warming task force. “Here in Wisconsin giving support to new nuclear reactors is a way to get Republican votes,” says Farsetta. “It’s a political gamble. It’s not based on the science, it’s not based on the actual merits of this power source.”

“The people who are crafting the bill thought, hey, maybe we can get some votes that we wouldn’t get otherwise, if we add that language in there,” she says. “We’re saying, that’s not good enough. That’s not good enough to put communities across the state at risk to becoming de facto nuclear waste dump sites.”

Farsetta says there’s no need to pretend we have to choose between building more coal plants or building new nuclear reactors. Renewable energy costs are decreasing while storage systems for renewable power are becoming stronger.

“Nuclear power is just a dangerous and costly distraction from doing that,” says Farsetta.

On Tuesday February 23, the Carbon Free, Nuclear Free campaign is organizing a lobby day at the state capitol. Proponents of the bill hope it will pass by Earth Day.

“We have a window of opportunity now,” Farsetta says. She encourages people to call their representatives and say I’m really glad Wisconsin is considering a bill about climate change, but the nuclear power language needs to be taken out of it.

For more information contact the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice Carbon Free, Nuclear Free campaign at http://www.wnpj.org/cfnf.

Millions of people will lose unemployment benefits in the coming months unless Congress takes action. Now’s the time to extend the social safety net programs in the stimulus package.

Here in Wisconsin, the first state to enact unemployment insurance, the headlines blare that more than 100,000 Wisconsinites could lose their unemployment benefits by the end of April.

Wisconsin legislators are contacting members of its congressional delegation and sent a letter to Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, asking for a reauthorization of critical benefits in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

“Without this extension, 104,000 Wisconsinites will lose their benefits by the end of April, 2010,” reads the letter. “The job market has not rebounded.”

While state legislators write to Congress, the state’s Department of Workforce Development is sending out letters notifying people their unemployment benefits will end within several weeks.

2009 was a tough year for Wisconsin. Places like Janesville have been hard hit by the downturn in the automotive industry. The state has lost about 163,000 jobs during the past year. Wisconsin’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is just under 9 percent, which is below the national rate but far higher than the state rate of 5.9 percent from a year ago.

But those numbers do not portray how bad it is. In 2005, The Progressive published a story called “The Stealth Depression in Black America.” Among African American men, Milwaukee’s jobless rate stood at 59 percent. And that was before the recession started.

Like other states, Wisconsin’s unemployment fund is in crisis. Wisconsin will have to deal with a projected deficit of about $2.8 billion by the end of 2011.

Wisconsin isn’t the only state facing depleted funds as this so-called jobless recovery continues. A new National Employment Law Project report finds that without congressional action, nearly 5 million jobless workers will lose benefits by June.

Congress needs to act now and extend these benefits.