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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The reversal of a conservation law court decision to protect Michigan's Au Sable River is an unintended outcome from large donations by anonymous funders funneled through tax-exempt organizations. Known as 501(c)(4)s, these groups are becoming a vehicle of choice for big donors to hide large political donations. -
The House Ways and Means Committee became the first oversight panel in Congress to weigh in on the IRS tax-exempt group controversy on Friday morning.
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The Justice Department is investigating the IRS's flagging of grass-roots conservative groups that sought nonprofit status. But some lawmakers want the debate extended to look at the well-financed activities of existing 501(c)(4) groups that spent millions in the 2012 elections.
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Despite disappointment at the polls, attendance isn't expected to dip much at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference near the nation's capital. But there has been an uproar over who's invited to CPAC this year — and who's not. -
Gov. Mitt Romney started his campaign calling for big tax breaks for the middle class. Over time his goals for those breaks have expanded to maintaining the government's flow of income and creating jobs. In the end, will a middle-class tax cut still be possible? -
Fundraising reports filed Thursday night by the presidential campaigns look a lot like recent public opinion polls. They show President Obama with a slight advantage in monthly fundraising last month — while Republican Mitt Romney has the edge by some other measures.
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Congress hasn't been doing much lately — at least in terms of congressional work. In terms of fundraising for their re-election campaigns, however, they're as busy as can be.
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One of the biggest players in contested Senate races this year has been Crossroads GPS, a social welfare non-profit group that can conceal the names of its donors. Now, top GOP senators are telling the IRS to back off new rules that could make it harder for groups like Crossroads to operate.
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After winning the 1992 America's Cup race, Bill Koch — the brother of billionaire industrialists David and Charles — treated all 260-plus people on the team, plus their families, to a trip to Hawaii. Now, the lesser known Koch brother has entered the presidential derby big leagues with a $2 million donation to the superPAC supporting Mitt Romney. -
The conservative group that has seen some corporate donors flee because of its involvement in pushing for voter ID and stand-your-ground gun laws, has new troubles. Common Cause has filed a complaint with the IRS that the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, violated the limits of its charity tax status.
