Ron Elving
Ron Elving is Senior Editor and Correspondent on the Washington Desk for NPR News, where he is frequently heard as a news analyst and writes regularly for NPR.org.
He is also a professorial lecturer and Executive in Residence in the School of Public Affairs at American University, where he has also taught in the School of Communication. In 2016, he was honored with the University Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching in an Adjunct Appointment. He has also taught at George Mason and Georgetown.
He was previously the political editor for USA Today and for Congressional Quarterly. He has been published by the Brookings Institution and the American Political Science Association. He has contributed chapters on Obama and the media and on the media role in Congress to the academic studies Obama in Office 2011, and Rivals for Power, 2013. Ron's earlier book, Conflict and Compromise: How Congress Makes the Law, was published by Simon & Schuster and is also a Touchstone paperback.
During his tenure as manager of NPR's Washington desk from 1999 to 2014, the desk's reporters were awarded every major recognition available in radio journalism, including the Dirksen Award for Congressional Reporting and the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In 2008, the American Political Science Association awarded NPR the Carey McWilliams Award "in recognition of a major contribution to the understanding of political science."
Ron came to Washington in 1984 as a Congressional Fellow with the American Political Science Association and worked for two years as a staff member in the House and Senate. Previously, he had been state capital bureau chief for The Milwaukee Journal.
He received his bachelor's degree from Stanford University and master's degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of California – Berkeley.
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Unusually robust job numbers for January, negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, and a preview of Tuesday's State of the Union.
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In the era of primetime coverage, the State of the Union offers a rare opportunity for a president to address — and for members to be seen by — a truly national television audience. -
The U.S. reaches its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling, setting the stage for a game of chicken between President Biden and House Republicans. And a fruitless Supreme Court investigation.
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We have been here before. But this time the House's new Republican majority is largely driven by a faction that says it will hold the debt limit vote as a hostage to win policy changes.
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The discovery of classified documents at President Biden's home and former office puts him in a tricky political situation. Also, what's ahead for Congressman George Santos and the nation's economy.
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Newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's 15 rounds of voting were the most a speaker has endured since the 1850s. What does the politically fraught ascent mean for McCarthy?
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The memory of the speakership fights leading up to the Civil War remind us that the consequences of dysfunction in the national government affect us all.
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It took five days and 15 tries, but Kevin McCarthy was finally elected speaker of the House. What it means for the Republican Party and the next two years.
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Both Kevin McCarthy and the nominee for speaker a century ago represented a party establishment regarded with hostility by a potent faction of the party. They became the embodiment of its grievances.
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The standing ovation was for Sens. Leahy and Shelby and for their work. But in a sense it was also celebrating an idea – one more often praised than practiced – the idea of Congress itself.
