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 won the prestigious Joan S. Barone award for their 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 , 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.
-
This past week, politicians of all stripes blanketed the Midwest and the news. We wanted to balance the talking points and campaign speeches with the voices of ordinary people, struggling in this economy, so NPR's Andrea Seabrook drove south, out of Washington, D.C., filing stories from places that don't often make the news.
-
"The silver lining to the downgrade is it'll make us face reality in Washington," says GOP freshman Andy Harris. Many in Washington — and on Wall Street — are pinning their hopes on a supercommittee being created to come up with ways to cut the deficit. -
Last night, the House of Representatives postponed a vote on its debt ceiling bill.
-
Speaker John Boehner's plan for raising the debt ceiling in two steps and cutting the budget comes to the House floor Wednesday. But does he have the votes to pass it?
-
President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner started the weekend with a pair of dueling news conferences, followed by back-room conversations, conference calls and news releases — but no deal was reached in the debt talks. Now leaders of each party are drafting their own plans for avoiding a crisis.
-
In less than four weeks, the U.S. government could go into default on some of its debts. President Obama has been spending a lot of time talking to lawmakers. On Thursday, he gathered Congress's top brass in a White House conference room to lay the groundwork for what he hopes will be a final deal, which would get the federal budget under control, and raise the debt limit before that default-deadline.
-
President Obama invited congressional leaders to the White House for face-to-face meetings on the budget Thursday. He wants to reach a deal within two weeks, which would leave time to raise the federal debt ceiling before an Aug. 2 deadline.
-
Congress seems to have no answers on the debt-ceiling issue, so NPR's Andrea Seabrook takes it to the people. What do they think lawmakers should do? What do they want? Do former members of Congress have any insight into what it will take to get a deal?
-
President Obama tells Congress to get cracking on the deficit reduction talks — and maybe not take so many vacations. After all, Mister Obama said, his kids do their homework ahead of time, so why can't Congress?
-
The House voted Friday on two resolutions dealing with NATO-led military operations in Libya. The first would have authorized U.S. operations for a year — that failed. The second would have placed severe funding limits on American involvement in the conflict — that failed too.
