Sheldon Whitehouse

The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy

Captured

Melanie Wachtell Stinnett

A U.S. senator, leading the fight against money in politics, chronicles the long shadow corporate power has cast over our democracy In Captured, U.S. Senator and former federal prosecutor Sheldon Whitehouse offers an eye-opening take on what corporate influence looks like today from the Senate Floor, adding a first-hand perspective to Jane Mayer's Dark Money. Americans know something is wrong in their government. Senator Whitehouse combines history, legal scholarship, and personal experiences to provide the first hands-on, comprehensive explanation of what's gone wrong, exposing multiple avenues through which our government has been infiltrated and disabled by corporate powers. Captured reveals an original oversight by the Founders, and shows how and why corporate power has exploited that vulnerability: to strike fear in elected representatives who don't "get right" by threatening million-dollar "dark money" election attacks (a threat more effective and less expensive than the actual attack); to stack the judiciary--even the Supreme Court--in "business-friendly" ways; to "capture" the administrative agencies meant to regulate corporate behavior; to undermine the civil jury, the Constitution's last bastion for ordinary citizens; and to create a corporate "alternate reality" on public health and safety issues like climate change. Captured shows that in this centuries-long struggle between corporate power and individual liberty, we can and must take our American government back into our own hands.

Jennifer Mueller

How the Right Wing Used Dark Money to Capture the Supreme Court

The Scheme

This collection of quotations speaks to the forms and principles of our American democracy and laws, and to the courage, optimism and sacrifice that ennoble our great American experiment. "Throughout his years in public service, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has collected fresh and timeless insights, advice, and inspiration from a unique array of wise men and women. While partisanship and political infighting plague Washington, Sheldon's life handbook will remind every reader--regardless of political persuasion--of America's core values, and of our own better natures. On Virtues couldn't have come at a better time for our country." --President William Jefferson Clinton "My friend and colleague, Sheldon Whitehouse, has written a very valuable book of quotations. In On Virtues, he has collected the wisdom of some of the sharpest observers of history and the human condition. They should inspire readers to live satisfying, honorable, and genuinely patriotic lives just as they have inspired him. I highly recommend it." --U.S. Senator John McCain "Sheldon Whitehouse's two-decade effort at assembling great quotations has yielded a treasure. I have never encountered such an abundance of useful wisdom in such a compact volume." --Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. "This isn't just a collection of inspiring quoting--though it is. This isn't just a guide to living an honorable life--though it is. It's a book you will keep by your bedside and enjoy for years and years to come." --U.S. Senator Al Franken "This book is a wonderful reminder--one we need in these times--that our lives are about more than just our personal comfort, and that we each inherit a tradition of idealism and action for the greater good. This great collection of thoughts should be kept at hand by all who occupy the office of 'citizen.'" --Trevor Potter, lawyer for Stephen Colbert's SuperPAC and former Chairman of the Federal Election Commission

Sheldon Whitehouse

About

Books

Join the club