Pam Fessler
Pam Fessler is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk, where she covers poverty, philanthropy, and voting issues.
In her reporting at NPR, Fessler does stories on homelessness, hunger, affordable housing, and income inequality. She reports on what non-profit groups, the government, and others are doing to reduce poverty and how those efforts are working. Her poverty reporting was recognized with a 2011 First Place National Headliner Award.
Fessler also covers elections and voting, including efforts to make voting more accessible, accurate, and secure. She has done countless stories on everything from the debate over state voter identification laws to Russian hacking attempts and long lines at the polls.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Fessler became NPR's first Homeland Security correspondent. For seven years, she reported on efforts to tighten security at ports, airports, and borders, and the debate over the impact on privacy and civil rights. She also reported on the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, The 9/11 Commission Report, Social Security, and the Census. Fessler was one of NPR's White House reporters during the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Before becoming a correspondent, Fessler was the acting senior editor on the Washington Desk and NPR's chief election editor. She coordinated all network coverage of the presidential, congressional, and state elections in 1996 and 1998. In her more than 25 years at NPR, Fessler has also been deputy Washington Desk editor and Midwest National Desk editor.
Earlier in her career, she was a senior writer at Congressional Quarterly magazine. Fessler worked there for 13 years as both a reporter and editor, covering tax, budget, and other news. She also worked as a budget specialist at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, and was a reporter at The Record newspaper in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Fessler has a master's of public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and a bachelor's degree from Douglass College in New Jersey.
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Congress approved $25 billion in emergency rental assistance to keep people housed during the pandemic. States are struggling to get the money out to those who need it.
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"Black individuals make up about 21% of all renters, but they make up 35% of all defendants on eviction cases," says Peter Hepburn, a researcher for Princeton University's Eviction Lab. -
President Biden nominated Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge to be secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The U.S. faces an eviction and housing affordability crisis — made worse by the pandemic.
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The annual street survey of homeless people is being delayed or put off completely in some parts of the U.S. during the pandemic, even as the country's unsheltered population appears to be growing. -
With many more people voting by mail this fall, election officials feared that millions of ballots would be rejected in the general election. Instead, rejection rates went down across the country. -
More than a half-million mail-in ballots were rejected in this year's primaries due to mistakes and missed deadlines. Officials feared many more would be rejected in November, but that did not happen.
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More than two weeks after the election, President Trump still refuses to concede. And now his legal team is alleging an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Democrats stole the election.
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President Trump and his GOP allies are making a series of false claims about how last week's election went. NPR reporters discuss why those claims are false and the larger strategy behind making them.
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The U.S. voting system faced many challenges in 2020, including the coronavirus pandemic, a highly divided electorate and allegations of fraud. But many election observers say things went pretty well.
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The Trump campaign has launched a slew of lawsuits in several states designed to dent Joe Biden's growing lead in the vote count. But state courts are quickly dismissing some of those suits.
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The ballots are still being tabulated in some key states — Pennsylvania and Michigan, for example. The presidential campaigns are braced for possible legal fights.
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More than 100 million Americans voted early, and tens of millions more are expected to turn out at the polls. There've been a few disruptions, but more challenges could come when the counting begins.
