Sumner Slichter, longtime chief policy adviser to former Wisconsin senator Russ Feingold, died at age 62 of brain cancer in his Alexandria, Virginia, home on Monday.  

Slichter met Feingold in 1981, and he convinced the former senator to run for a Wisconsin state Senate seat which Feingold won the following year. After Feingold was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992, Slichter served for 18 years as policy director.  

“Sumner was at my side for every vote I took in 28 years as a legislator, and I didn’t vote until I sought his wise counsel,” Feingold said.  

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He is survived by his wife, Pam Russell, and daughter, Sarah. In lieu of flowers, his family asked for donations in his memory to the Russ for Wisconsin Senate campaign; Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson, a housing and utilities rights organization; and Capital Caring, a nonprofit hospice provider.  

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