{"title":"Jeff Merkley","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplore the works of Jeff Merkley, a champion for progressive values and insightful policy. Delve into his books to understand the forces shaping our world and discover pathways for positive change.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"filibustered-book-jeff-merkley-9781620977989","title":"Filibustered!","description":"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.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49747450102033,"sku":"NGR9781620977989","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51039990776081,"sku":"NIN9781620977989","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51326265983249,"sku":"CIN1620977982VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52689207755025,"sku":"NLS9781620977989","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52819720241425,"sku":"CIN1620977982G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1620977982.jpg?v=1750763980"},{"product_id":"america-is-better-than-this-book-jeff-merkley-9781538734193","title":"America Is Better Than This","description":"Jeff Merkley couldn't believe his eyes. He never dreamed the United States could treat vulnerable young families like caged animals. No outsider had witnessed what Merkley discovered just by showing up at the border and demanding to see what was going on behind closed doors.  Behind the official stories and soothing videos, he found mothers and children, new-born babies and infants, locked into ice-cold cages in makeshift prisons, or camping in blistering heat at the border. There were internment camps with no running water. There were disused supermarkets overflowing with more than a thousand young boys, locked up with nothing to keep them sane or active each day.  This was how the Trump administration treated the victims of the unspeakable violence that had driven them from their homes: as dangerous criminals whose spirits needed to be broken.  It was Merkley's visits -- captured live on viral video -- that triggered worldwide outrage at the forced separation of children from their parents. Just by taking an interest -- by caring about the people legally claiming asylum at America's borders -- Merkley helped expose the Trump administration's war on migrant families. Along the way, he helped turn the tide against some of its worst excesses.  FREE THEM! tells the inside story of how a junior senator, with no background of being an immigration activist, became one of the leading advocates for reform of the brutal policies that have created a new humanitarian crisis on the southern US border. It represents the heartfelt and candid voice of a concerned American who believes his country stands for something far bigger and better than the punishment of immigrants who are no different from so many of the people who built the United States.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50388301414673,"sku":"CIN1538734192G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51614573232401,"sku":"CIN1538734192VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53349765316881,"sku":"NLS9781538734193","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1538734192.jpg?v=1751407016"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-jeff-merkley.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}