Examining the way lobbyists operate with Congress and the federal bureaucracy, this study chronicles the defeat of the Tabacco Institute and American Medical Association lobbies and the victory for the 1982 Voting Rights Act and the halt of MX missile production

Giant Killers

Politics & Social Sciences

Pertschuk, Michael

Politics & Government

W.W.Norton&Company

“Giant Killers is one of the rare books that is fun to read, fascinating and educational about the realities of modern Washington lobbying. Mike Pertschuk has done a great service, with good humor and lively anecdotes.” ―Joseph A. Califano, Jr., former Secretary of Health and Human Services He is the former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. Yet, some of his best friends are lobbyists. They don’t lobby for the special interest; they lobby for arms control, civil rights, the environment, consumer safety, and justice. This is their story.

Pertschuk, Michael, Revolt Against Regulation: The Rise And Pause Of The Consumer Mov

Revolt Against Regulation

Social Sciences

Univ. Of California Pr.

"Michael Pertschuk brings an insider's insight to the tumultuous years of the sixties and seventies, when the consumer protection bells rang from Washington throughout the land. An engrossing story of corporate versus consumer battles over health, safety, and the economic rights of Americans. The future of consumer justice is given wisdom by this eyewitness account."--Ralph Nadar "This is a book that should be ready by everyone with a stake in regulation of business by bureaucrats in Washington. Whether you agree or disagree with his point of view--and I often disagree--you can always count on Mike Pertschuk to be provocative, stimulating, and certainly controversial."--Howard H. Bell, President, American Advertising Federation "There is a lot of businessmen [sic] to disagree with in this book. It's troublesome and disturbing--not the least because Mike Pertschuk is a tough adversary. But any businessman [sic]--or citizen--who wants to know exactly how the politics of regulation work would be well advised to read this book--and be prepared."--George Koch, President and Chief Executive Officer Grocery Manufacturers of America "Must reading for everyone who is a student of the consumer movement, past, present, and future, and its interaction with the government, media, private sector, et al. It is a superb 'How To' manual on tactics, and presents a rare inside look at how things really get done in that place called Washington, D.C."--Calvin Pond, Vice President, Public Affairs Division Safeway Stores, Inc. "Pertschuk's book is outstanding; it is a beautiful blend of personal, firsthand observation and political and policy analysis."--Aaron Wildavsky, University of California, Berkeley "A rare picture of how government works. . . sprightly, lucid, and appealing . . .remarkably candid and honest, not only in revealing the labyrinthian interplays of politics but in disclosing the author's own attitudes and motives. . . . An extraordinary document."--Charles Lindblom, Yale University "There is no more controversial figure in Washington than Michael Pertschuk . . ."--Senator John Danforth

Revolt Against Regulation: The Rise and Pause of the Consumer Movement

Business & Money

Marketing & Sales

University of California Press

Smoke in Their Eyes: Lessons in Movement Leadership from the Tobacco Wars

The classic American struggle between the public interest and corporate interests is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the decades-long struggle between the tobacco industry and advocates for public health. The failure of the "global settlement" legislation is now viewed by many public health experts as an historic missed opportunity, and in this extraordinary book, Smoke in Their Eyes, Michael Pertschuk brilliantly describes the forces brought to bear. A lifelong public health leader and tobacco control advocate, Pertschuk provides uncommon insight into the movement and its opposition. Questions that reveal themselves here can be applied to public advocacy as a whole: how can movement leaders gauge and best employ popular support? Who has legitimacy to speak on behalf of a particular public cause? And perhaps most crucially, how is it possible for those whose cause is a moral one to strike political compromise? With a narrative as compelling as the issues it raises, Smoke in Their Eyes will be of great interest to everyone from students of public advocacy and political science to general readers.

Economics

Vanderbilt University Press

The classic American struggle between the public interest and corporate interests is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the decades-long struggle between the tobacco industry and advocates for public health. The failure of the "global settlement" legislation is now viewed by many public health experts as an historic missed opportunity, and in this extraordinary book, Smoke in Their Eyes, Michael Pertschuk brilliantly describes the forces brought to bear. 
A lifelong public health leader and tobacco control advocate, Pertschuk provides uncommon insight into the movement and its opposition. Questions that reveal themselves here can be applied to public advocacy as a whole: how can movement leaders gauge and best employ popular support? Who has legitimacy to speak on behalf of a particular public cause? And perhaps most crucially, how is it possible for those whose cause is a moral one to strike political compromise? With a narrative as compelling as the issues it raises, Smoke in Their Eyes will be of great interest to everyone from students of public advocacy and political science to general readers.

The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will into Political Power

Vinny DeMarco might be a latter-day Don Quixote except that he tilts his lance at real obstacles to social justice: lobby-locked state legislatures and Congress, stonewalling the public will. And he makes impossible dreams come true. In twenty years of organizing campaigns in Maryland, he has led successful efforts to pass gun control laws (against National Rifle Association opposition), to hike cigarette taxes to prevent youth smoking, and to extend health care to hundreds of thousands of low-income workers. He has also built a unique alliance of mainstream and conservative faith groups, which helped secure rare bipartisan votes in Congress for the enactment in July 2009 of landmark FDA regulation of tobacco manufacture and marketing. DeMarco's unique strategic template, developed over two decades of serial campaigning, includes momentum-building stages over a multiyear campaign; unrelenting, skillful access to the media for engaging public support; coalitions of hundreds, even thousands, of faith, community, labor, public health, and business groups; and a hard press on candidates to support legislation before elections, rather than after they are comfortably in office. As an organizer/leader, Demarco also succeeds in his campaigns through force of personality: his unquenchable exuberance and idiosyncrasies delight and madden his opponents--sometimes his allies, too. Michael Pertschuk, himself a veteran advocate, here chronicles three of DeMarco's campaigns, each facing a different obstacle course. His deep analysis draws out strategic and leadership lessons that engaged citizens and advocates for popular causes stonewalled by powerful lobbies can put to immediate and practical use.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Every politically sentient American knows that Congress has been dominated by special interests, and many people do not remember a time when Congress legislated in the public interest. In the 1960s and '70s, however, lobbyists were aggressive but were countered by progressive senators and representatives, as several books have documented. What has remained untold is the major behind-the-scenes contribution of entrepreneurial Congressional staff, who planted the seeds of public interest bills in their bosses' minds and maneuvered to counteract the influence of lobbyists to pass laws in consumer protection, public health, and other policy arenas crying out for effective government regulation. They infuriated Nixon's advisor, John Ehrlichman, who called them "bumblebees," a name they wore as a badge of honor. For his insider account, Pertschuk draws on many interviews, as well as his fifteen years serving on the staff of the Senate Commerce Committee that Senator Warren Magnuson chaired and as the committee's Democratic Staff Director. That committee became, in Ralph Nader's words, "the Grand Central Station for consumer protection advocates."

When the Senate Worked for Us: The Invisible Role of Staffers in Countering Corporate Lobbies

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

The people rising: The campaign against the Bork nomination

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Books by Pertschuk, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Pertschuk, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Giant Killers

Giant Killers

Revolt Against Regulation

Revolt Against Regulation: The Rise and Pause of the Consumer Movement

Smoke in Their Eyes: Lessons in Movement Leadership from the Tobacco Wars

Smoke in Their Eyes: Lessons in Movement Leadership from the Tobacco Wars

The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will into Political Power

The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will into Political Power

When the Senate Worked for Us: The Invisible Role of Staffers in Countering Corporate Lobbies

The people rising: The campaign against the Bork nomination