Captured: The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy

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.


Author: Sheldon Whitehouse
Publisher: New Press
Published: 02/21/2017
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.97lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.70w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781620972076


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 12/15/2016

About the Author
Sheldon Whitehouse represents Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate. He has served as a federal and state prosecutor, business regulator, courtroom litigator, environmental advocate, and government reformer. Boston-based writer Melanie Wachtell Stinnett is a former Director of Policy & Communications for the Tobin Project.