Captured: The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy [Hardcover]

A U.S. senator, leading the fight against money in politics, chronicles the long shadow corporate power has cast over our democracy

InCaptured, 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’sDark 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.Capturedreveals 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.

Capturedshows 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.

Praise forCaptured:
“Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island has built his career around the seemingly unrelated issues of climate change and money in politics. His new book reveals how intimately connected they turn out to be.”
—Jeffrey Toobin,The New Yorker

“No, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehls4