In The Senate: From White Supremacy to Governmental Gridlock, Daniel Wirls argues that the constitutional mythology by which we have understood the Senate—from elements of the institution’s creation like equal representation to serving as the “cooling saucer” to the House of Representatives—are just that: myths that have perpetuated a system that protects racial subjugation and gridlock. Indeed, Wirls goes as far as to call the Senate the “principal cause of some problems; it exacerbates others; it solves nothing. Presidential power: has the Senate tamed it? No. Has the Senate reined in a runaway House? No. Instead, it is the Senate that has run away—from democracy—and taken governance with it” (pp. 2–3). Conducting a deep analysis of The Records of the Federal Convention (1787), Wirls dissects the conventional wisdom that the Senate is a deliberative body meant to protect minority rights by taking the reader through an analysis from the founding to the present day.

In his investigation of the Senate, Wirls draws on democratic theory and the constitutional roots of many aspects of the institution that students of American politics have adopted as the truth. In the vein of other normative democratic theory works like Robert Dahl’s (2001) How Democratic Is the American Constitution? Wirls lands on one of the most problematic aspects of the Senate: its perpetuation of a grandeur that is not fit for the institution. Not only does the Senate perpetuate antidemocratic norms but also officeholders, the media, and scholars of the institution alike have built folklore around thoughtful consideration and debate that has not only protected these norms but allowed the institution to devolve into gridlock.

Paramount to Wirls’s argument is the antidemocratic underpinnings of the institution’s creation at the Constitutional Convention, the long misinterpreted and historically inaccurate understanding of those underpinnings, and the unfounded view of the institution’s role as a protector of minority rights. Where traditional views of Madisonian democracy describe the Senate’s founding—a body composed of equal representation for each state—as a novel creation to protect against tyranny, Wirls corrects our understanding. In fact, he denies that Madison viewed the entire system—that is, the composition of the Congress, the formation of executive powers, and the establishment of an independent judiciary in a federalist system—as the novel rigs to allow the government structure to protect against tyranny.

Wirls shows that aspects of the institution’s creation had long-lasting implications for those who would defend its democratic nature. For example, the “compromise” of equal representation allowed for enduring growth in the power of slave states and in their ability to hinder any movement on the issue of slavery in the antebellum era. After the Civil War, democratic arguments did focus on the Senate, but rather than moving away from a malapportioned upper chamber, Wirls points out that our national focus instead shifted to another undemocratic element of the institution: the indirect election of senators. Wirls argues that failing to correct the issue of representation exacerbated malapportionment and favored the representation of sparsely populated rural regions over increasingly diverse and densely populated urban centers.

Perhaps one of the most nuanced arguments of the book is Wirls’s contention that the Senate should not be viewed as a continuing body—an argument that senators have historically used to increase the stature of the institution and prevent rule changes. He does so by dismantling the oft-cited staggering of terms—in which only one-third of the Senate is up for reelection in any given election year—as one of the reasons why it is a continuing body and thus insulated from radical change. Wirls makes a particularly persuasive argument that this was never the framers’ intent: instead, they intended the exact opposite—that instituting staggered terms would increase democratic turnover. This flawed interpretation of intent enabled future senators to argue against changes to procedures on filibusters, allowing for protracted debate and obstruction on civil rights.

Long viewed by senators of both parties as a protector of minority rights, the filibuster is seen by Wirls as a tool that has historically allowed for the marginalization of racial and ethnic minority rights, rather than as a mechanism for protection of them. Wirls’s work on the filibuster aptly augments the scholarly literature by providing a historical account that pairs well with other empirical work on the parliamentary tactic (Gregory Koger, Filibustering: A Political History of the House and Senate, 2010; Lauren C. Bell, Filibustering in the U.S. Senate, 2011; and Steven S. Smith, The Senate Syndrome: The Evolution of Procedural Warfare in the Modern U.S. Senate, 2014).

Although Wirls certainly makes the case that the Senate has perpetuated white political superiority, this aspect of the book sometimes plays second fiddle to correcting the record on the Senate’s democratic underpinnings. Indeed, even though it is entirely appropriate to argue that much of our understanding of the Senate’s creation is inaccurate, these misunderstandings often do not align with the perpetuation of the suppression of racial and ethnic minority rights. For example, Wirls accurately focuses in chapter 1 on correcting our notions of how the Senate was established, but he fails to take into consideration that the entirety of the formation of the US government has its roots, at least to some extent, in white supremacy more broadly. Still, the book’s argument is well illustrated, and the normative claims are persuasive overall.

The Senate: From White Supremacy to Governmental Gridlock should be read by scholars not only of the Senate and Congress but also by all scholars of American politics. Indeed, the book corrects much of our misunderstanding of the US Senate and fundamentally challenges beliefs about the institution’s ability to act as a deliberative body capable of protecting minority rights. It furthers our understanding of how deeply racialized the underpinnings of American institutions actually are. The book would be appropriate for graduate students in an American politics seminar but could also be easily incorporated into undergraduate classes on Congress, race and ethnic politics, and even introductory courses on American politics. Wirls provides readers with both historical examples and contemporary examples that help illustrate the problematic issues taken on by the book, giving readers of any background an easy way to relate to the content. Beyond the classroom, the book will be of broad interest to scholars seeking to understand the historical roots of gridlock in the modern Senate. It is essential reading for all instructors of American politics.