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Michael (Mike) Pertschuk worked for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for thirteen years during the 1960s and 1970s. The Committee was chaired by Senator Warren G. Magnuson of Washington. Pertschuk attended Yale University, Yale Law School, and clerked for federal district judge Gus Solomon in Oregon. In 1962. he joined the staff of Oregon Senator Maureen Neuberger and began working on the health effects of smoking and legislation to regulate cigarette advertising. These efforts contributed to the first study by the surgeon general on the health risks of smoking. In 1964, he joined the Commerce Committee to staff a new consumer protection subcommittee. He became the committee general counsel in 1968 and staff director in 1973. He left the committee in 1977 to become chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. In 1981, he co-founded the Advocacy Institute. When the Senate Worked for Us is Pertschuk’s seventh book and was published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2017.

Magnuson was elected to the House of Representatives in 1936 and to the Senate in 1944. He served as chairman of the Commerce Committee between 1955 and 1977. Much of the consumer protection and automobile safety legislation was enacted by the Committee during Magnuson’s chairmanship. He was also responsible for significant health care legislation and funding. Magnuson was chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee from 1977 to 1981. He was President pro tempore of the Senate from 1978 to 1981.