Filibustered!

Praise for Filibustered!:“An accessible and detailed explanation of a powerful but poorly understood force in American politics.”—Publishers Weekly“Essential reading for anyone wondering what happened to American democracy and determined to get it back.”—Robert B. Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor“The rigged Senate gives billionaires a veto over progressive policy. Everyone who wants to fix the Senate and save America should read this book.”—Senator Bernie Sanders“Filibustered! is a clarifying examination of how political good is held hostage by obstructionist protocol and intentional paralysis. The book forcefully connects the reader to the filibuster as a central barrier to the highest aims of civil rights, while also providing a map to ways average citizens can demand more at the ballot box and beyond.”—Stacey Abrams“A fascinating, persuasive account of how and why today’s Senate can be reformed and its deliberative capacity restored. Filibustered! brings us inside the ‘room where it happens’ to offer unparalleled insights into the fight to fix the Senate. Essential reading for all.”—Sarah Binder, senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and professor of political science at George Washington University“In an overheating world that desperately requires American leadership, the filibuster essentially means that the fossil fuel industry can exercise a veto on climate policy. For that—and a hundred other reasons of justice and equity that this fine volume lays out in absorbing detail—it’s high time we returned something resembling democracy to the Senate.”—Bill McKibben, founder, Third Act

Senator Jeff Merkley has served in the U.S. Senate since 2009 and has been a champion of reforming our democracy and a vigorous advocate for tackling inequality and climate change. He has written a number of proposals to restore the talking filibuster and responded to the Gorsuch Supreme Court nomination with the eighth-longest speech in Senate history, clocking in at nearly fifteen and a half hours. The author of America Is Better Than This and Filibustered! (The New Press), he lives in Portland, Oregon.