Andrea Seabrook
Andrea Seabrook covers Capitol Hill as NPR's Congressional Correspondent.
In each report, Seabrook explains the daily complexities of legislation and the longer trends in American politics. She delivers critical, insightful reporting – from the last Republican Majority, through the speakership of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats' control of the House, to the GOP landslide of 2010. She and NPR's Peter Overby won the prestigious Joan S. Barone award for their Dollar Politics series, which exposed the intense lobbying effort around President Obama's Health Care legislation. Seabrook and Overby's most recent collaboration, this time on the flow of money during the 2010 midterm elections, was widely lauded and drew a huge audience spike on NPR.org.
An authority on the comings and goings of daily life on Capitol Hill, Seabrook has covered Congress for NPR since January 2003 She took a year-and-a-half break, in 2006 and 2007, to host the weekend edition of NPR's newsmagazine, All Things Considered. In that role, Seabrook covered a wide range of topics, from the uptick in violence in the Iraq war, to the history of video game music.
A frequent guest host of NPR programs, including Weekend Edition and Talk of the Nation, Seabrook has also anchored NPR's live coverage of national party conventions and election night in 2006 and 2008.
Seabrook joined NPR in 1998 as an editorial assistant for the music program, Anthem. After serving in a variety of editorial and production positions, she moved to NPR's Mexico Bureau to work as a producer and translator, providing fill-in coverage of Mexico and Central America. She returned to NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1999 and worked on NPR's Science Desk and the NPR/National Geographic series, "Radio Expeditions." Later she moved to NPR's Morning Edition, starting as an editorial assistant and then moving up to Assistant Editor. She then began her on-air career as a weekend general assignment reporter for all NPR programs.
Before coming to NPR, Seabrook lived, studied and worked in Mexico City, Mexico. She ran audio for movies and television, and even had a bit part in a Mexican soap opera.
Seabrook earned her bachelor's degree in biology from Earlham College and studied Latin American literature at UNAM - La Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. While in college she worked at WECI, the student-run public radio station at Earlham College.
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According to Gallup, Congress has never been more disliked in all the years it has been polling that question. Can it get any worse heading into the new year?
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They spent weeks vowing to oppose a short-term compromise bill extending payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance. But in the end, not one of them showed up to oppose Speaker Boehner's plan. NPR has new details about the Tea Party's private deliberations. -
Newt Gingrich has spent decades weaving relationships in and around government — starting with his successful campaign to win the House majority back in the early 1990s. Some of his most ardent supporters now worked with him back then — but some of his angriest opponents did, too. -
Lawmakers have spent much of this year struggling to reach a deal that could get budget deficits under control. But the problem has been developing for at least a decade. In 2000, there was a $200 billion surplus.
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In the 1950s, Rand felt that her ideal of unfettered capitalism was missing in politics. But today, her ideas are alive and well-represented in the U.S. Capitol. Her philosophy has sunk so deeply into our political thought, many people don't even recognize it as hers anymore.
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Herman Cain is near the top of a new national poll, despite battling allegations of sexual harassment from a dozen years ago. So what do his likely fans at the Americans for Prosperity Foundation conference think of Cain and charges against him? NPR's Andrea Seabrook was there and talked to some of them.
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The numbers detailing the income gap between rich and poor can be difficult to grasp, but NPR's Andrea Seabrook and Robert Smith can explain.
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The huge House GOP freshman class that swept into office in 2010 faces its first re-election challenge next year, one that at least some of them may not be able to meet. New fundraising figures show that many freshmen have relatively low campaign bank balances heading into the election year. -
On Capitol Hill, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction has gone silent for the past month. The 12 members have been meeting behind closed doors — sometimes all together, sometimes in smaller groups — to try to hammer out a deal on future budget cuts. -
In a rare hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer discussed the role of judges under the Constitution. Among the revelations: Scalia considers himself out of touch with modern American values and Breyer likes to top off debates with a joke.
