Democracy

The U.S. Senator from Oregon who is leading the fight to restore the talking filibuster explains how changing just one rule could save our democracy

If we want to fix what ails America, we have to fix the Senate. And if we want to fix the Senate, we must fix the broken filibuster.

In a compelling and powerfully argued book, Senator Jeff Merkley and his longtime chief of staff tell the insiders’ story of how the Senate used to work and how the filibuster came to cripple the self-styled “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body” with paralyzing gridlock. And they make the surprising case that restoring a modified version of the old-style, talking filibuster may just be our democracy’s path back from the brink.

For nearly two centuries, the Senate designed by the Founders served the purpose they envisioned: it was a deliberative legislative body where the nation’s thorniest challenges were hashed out. Senators had the ability to speak at length and offer any manner of amendments to influence bills, and then when all had had a say, the Senate voted. Senators who objected to passing a bill could wage a defiant filibuster—in the spirit of fictional Senator Smith who talked until he collapsed in order to block a corrupt railroad deal in the classic 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But at the end of the day, nearly all legislation, amendments, and nominations went to a vote, and the majority prevailed.

Today, however, thanks to abuse of a fifty-year-old reform intended to make it easier for the Senate to pass legislation, the exceedingly difficult, rare filibuster has morphed, plunging the Senate into dysfunction and threatening the very foundations of our democracy. Now, the minority party can simply declare a “no-talk” filibuster, insisting on a supermajority of sixty votes to pass nearly any bill or a lengthy process to confirm any of the president’s nominees—giving themselves a veto over the majority’s agenda. Wildly popular bills languish, judgeships and administrative posts remain unfilled, but ordinary citizens can’t see why because the obstruction all takes place behind closed doors.

Filibustered! combines a marvelous romp through key moments in filibuster history—from the first filibuster in 1841 through Southern Dixiecrat filibusters of civil rights legislation, up through Mitch McConnell’s transformation of the filibuster into a routine tool of perennial gridlock—with firsthand accounts of recent high-profile legislative fights, and a compelling argument that the key to the Senate’s future may be found in its past.

The day after the 2016 presidential election, filmmaker Carlos Sandoval found Ku Klux Klan fliers on the seats of the Long Island Railroad and recounts how his Cuban American niece Lexi’s world was “shattered” by the election—she is one of thousands of children wondering if they will be deported or denied benefits under the Trump administration. Other children are taunted on the playground, have their head scarves ripped off, or are left to wonder, “Does Donald Trump not like brown boys like me?” And girls everywhere are devastated that a crass and bigoted bully was elected over the woman poised to become America’s first female president.

In the wake of the election, even the most thoughtful and progressive parents across the country found themselves at a loss for words. Borrowing its title from the memorable election night question posed by Van Jones, How Do I Explain This to My Kids? brings together moving first-person accounts by parents including novelist Mira Jacob, Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen, scholar Robin D.G. Kelley, New York Times blogger Nicole Chung, and others, who recount their best efforts to parent effectively in the current climate. The second half of the book features advice from leading child psychologist Ava Siegler, whose bestselling book What Should I Tell the Kids? established her as an authority on talking to children about difficult topics. From racism and homophobia to anti-Semitism, lying, sexism, and bullying, Dr. Siegler provides concrete advice for parents of kids of all ages—grade schoolers, preteens, adolescents, and young adults—for helping their children navigate a complicated, difficult time.

A controversial examination of how our political system, despite “Get Out the Vote” rhetoric, works to suppress the vote—especially the votes of African Americans

Today, over forty years after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 demolished bars to voting for African Americans, the effort to prevent black people—as well as Latinos and the poor in general—from voting is experiencing a resurgence. A myriad of new tactics, some of which adopt the mantle of “election reform,” has evolved to suppress the vote. In this sharply argued new book, three of America’s leading experts on party politics and elections demonstrate that our political system is as focused on stopping people from voting as on getting Americans to go to the polls.

In recent years, the Republican Party, the Bush administration, and the conservative movement have devoted a remarkable amount of effort to controlling election machinery (the scandal over federal prosecutors was in part over their refusal to gin up election-fraud cases). But Keeping Down the Black Vote shows that the effort to rig the system is as old as American political parties themselves, and race is at the heart of the game.