Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Senate and American Democracy

1. Creating Something Exceptional? Power and Purpose in the Design of the Senate

2. Equal Representation: The Perpetual Great Compromise

3. Equal Representation’s Inexorable Clash with Political and Racial Equality

4. The Right of the Living Dead: Staggered Terms, Continuing Bodies, and Constitutional Myths Senators Tell Themselves and America

5. The Filibuster: From Southern Citadel to the Sixty-Vote Senate

6. “Cooling the Coffee”: More Myths Senators Tell Themselves, and the Filibuster’s Clash with Effective Government and the Constitution

7. The Supermajority Senate Curtailed: Nuclear Options and Mushroom Clouds of Hypocrisy

Conclusion: Constitutional Repair and Reparations

Notes

Index