Kill switch The rise of the modern Senate and the crippling of American democracy

Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Jentleson, who served as deputy chief of staff to former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, debuts with an engrossing primer on modern-day congressional gridlock. Frustrated by Republicans who had been using the filibuster at an unprecedented rate to obstruct President Obama's Cabinet-level and judicial nominees, Reid invoked the so-called "nuclear option" in 2013 and changed Senate rules so that only a simple majority, rather than a three-fifths supermajority, was necessary to end debate on presidential nominees. (Legislation still requires a supermajority.) Citing Merrick Garland's thwarted Supreme Court nomination and a gun control bill that failed to pass despite the support of 55 senators and 90% of the public, Jentleson argues that Senate rules empower "a minority of predominantly white conservatives to override our democratic system." His suggestions for reform include doing away with supermajority requirements except where they're mandated by the Constitution, fixing filibuster rules to revive "real debate," and democratizing how Senate majority leaders are chosen. Jentleson skillfully clarifies many arcane legislative procedures and brings a wide range of historical episodes to vivid life. Readers will be galvanized to make the issue of Senate reform a priority. (Jan.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Public affairs director at Democracy Forward and a former deputy chief of staff to Senator Harry Reid, Jentleson argues that the real problem with the Senate is not its polarized politics but its having become increasingly hierarchical, with both parties responsible and Republicans now taking advantage of the situation.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Provocative portrait of a dysfunctional--by design, it seems--U.S. Senate. The Senate has been in a long state of decline, writes Jentleson, public affairs director at Democracy Forward and former deputy chief of staff to Sen. Harry Reid. That fall was "set in motion by senators themselves, who found that suffocating the institution with genteel gridlock served their interests," especially during Jim Crow, when obstructionism was a handy technique for blocking civil rights legislation. However, when Jentleson arrived at the Senate, those tools "had come to be applied to all Senate business." Don't like a piece of impending legislation? Invoke the filibuster, which was not meant to be used by the Senate in the first place--and particularly not as Mitch McConnell and company have honed it down to be, so that the stand-your-ground-and-jabber filibuster of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington has been replaced by one in which a senator doesn't even have to be present on the floor. By this means, along with advancing requirements for supermajorities when simple majority rule ought to hold, the Senate of the last 20 years has managed to avoid accomplishing almost anything--and the minority is definitely in charge, as it was in 2009, when Senate Republicans represented only 35% of the U.S. population. "The most fundamental characteristic of democracy--the idea that majority rule is the fairest way to decide the outcome of elections and determine which bills become law--is baked into our founding ideas and texts," argues Jentleson, but that's not the way it works, and that explains the continuing stranglehold of McConnell--whose major legislative achievement seems to have been to define corruption as requiring "only a direct, quid pro quo exchange"--even now that he's no longer the majority leader. The author proposes reforms, but given all he's outlined here, they seem unlikely ever to be heard. An astute and maddening account of a broken institution and, in turn, a broken democracy. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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