Meet Mike Gravel

Mike Gravel has spent his career standing up for democracy and transparency in government. He is a former U.S. Senator from Alaska, having served two terms from 1969-1981. Before that, he served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1963-1966, and as Speaker from 1965-1966. He ran for the Democratic Nomination for President in 2008.

In 1971, Mike Gravel engaged in a five month, one-man filibuster that forced an end to the Vietnam Draft. Mike Gravel is responsible for the official release of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the lies of three presidential administrations that led the United States into the Vietnam War. Mike Gravel believed his constituents needed to know the truth about their government if democracy was, and is, to survive. Soon after, he published The Pentagon Papers in 1971, and was prosecuted by the Nixon Justice Department all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled in his favor.

Mike Gravel is the author of Jobs and More Jobs and Citizen Power, and is also the coauthor of A Political Odyssey and The Kingmakers. He is the Founder of The Democracy Foundation, which sponsors the meta-legislative proposal, the National Initiative for Democracy: Mike Gravel’s proposal for enabling citizens to make laws by initiative.