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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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. -
Sheldon Adelson has bought The Las Vegas Review-Journal. In addition to making lots of money off of gambling and hospitality, Adelson is one of the most active donors in conservative politics.
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Presidential campaigns are trying to show donors how wisely they are spending funds, which highlights the limits to how much superPACs can defray traditional campaign costs.
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The amount of money in politics since the 2010 Citizens United decision is staggering. Hillary Clinton came out with a plan Tuesday to address it, but it's a daunting issue for a president to take on.
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Lawmakers have left Washington, D.C., for August recess, but intense lobbying over the Iran nuclear deal followed them home.
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The bank, which helps finance trade deals for U.S. companies, needed reapproval by June 30. Now it is living on borrowed time, after an anti-crony capitalism campaign driven by conservative groups.
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For the first time ever, a political operative got prison time for illegally coordinating between a superPAC and a campaign. It could have implications for the 2016 presidential race. -
A political consultant is to be sentenced Friday for the arcane felony of coordinating activities between a congressional campaign and a super PAC. He could get four to 10 years in prison.
