Peter Overby
Peter Overby has covered Washington power, money, and influence since a foresighted NPR editor created the beat in 1994.
Overby has covered scandals involving House Speaker Newt Gingrich, President Bill Clinton, lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others. He tracked the rise of campaign finance regulation as Congress passed campaign finance reform laws, and the rise of deregulation as Citizens United and other Supreme Court decisions rolled those laws back.
During President Trump's first year in office, Overby was on a team of NPR journalists covering conflicts of interest sparked by the Trump family business. He did some of the early investigations of dark money, dissecting a money network that influenced a Michigan judicial election in 2013, and — working with the Center for Investigative Reporting — surfacing below-the-radar attack groups in the 2008 presidential election.
In 2009, Overby co-reported Dollar Politics, a multimedia series on lawmakers, lobbyists and money as the Senate debated the Affordable Care Act. The series received an award for excellence from the Capitol Hill-based Radio and Television Correspondents Association. Earlier, he won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for his coverage of the 2000 elections and 2001 Senate debate on campaign finance reform.
Prior to NPR, Overby was an editor/reporter for Common Cause Magazine, where he shared an Investigative Reporters and Editors award. He worked on daily newspapers for 10 years, and has freelanced for publications ranging from Utne Reader and the Congressional Quarterly Guide To Congress to the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post.
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Organizing for Action is now deep in the battle over confirming the president's nominee to the Supreme Court. -
The Democracy Spring coalition of progressive groups called on legislators to replace caps on campaign donations, fix the Voting Rights Act and end gerrymandering. At least 400 were arrested. -
The presidential candidates and superPACS have raised a combined total of around $1 billion, but only three candidates have talked about repairing the campaign finance system, new analysis shows. -
The presidential candidates and superPACS have raised a combined total of around $1 billion, but only three candidates have talked about repairing the campaign finance system, new analysis shows.
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More than 1,000 participants have pledged to let themselves be arrested when the protests start next Monday in Washington, D.C. -
The justice vacancy means more TV ads, robocalls and the like from conservative and liberal advocacy groups. Many conservatives are digging into the record of President Obama's pick Merrick Garland.
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A fundraiser for the pro-Bush superPAC Right to Rise USA blasted the campaign strategy in an NPR interview. Now, he's accused of having an ax to grind against Bush's campaign manager. -
Jeb Bush's Right to Rise USA broke all records for presidential superPACs, but it didn't propel him to frontrunner status in the Republican presidential race. NPR explores if this means superPACs are overrated.
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It was a point of agreement between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders at their last debate. It's also supported by some Republican contenders. But that doesn't mean it'll happen easily. -
Some wealthy conservative donors, including Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson, haven't put their money behind any candidate yet while Democratic donors have lined up behind Hillary Clinton. -
Here are four ways to understand the controversy that the Texas senator finds himself in after it was revealed that his Senate campaign did not disclose a loan from the Wall Street investment giant. -
Outside groups were expected to propel candidates this year. But in the 2016 Republican primary, they are having little impact on who's up and who's down.
