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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Even as Pennsylvania's controversial new voter ID law faces court challenges, nonprofits and other groups are busy helping the state's voters, especially the poor and elderly, weave their way through a sometimes complicated bureaucratic process to get a photo ID before the election. -
As some states try to weed noncitizens from their voter registration rolls, there have been a few catches, and many mistakes. Advocacy groups worry that some of these people will be challenged at the polls or discouraged from voting on Election Day.
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The government says that the poverty rate for 2011 was 15 percent, essentially unchanged from the year before. That still means that more than 46 million people lived below the poverty line last year. According to one economist, "the bad news isn't as bad as it has been." -
Eight weeks before the presidential election, new laws passed by Republican legislatures that concern who can vote and when remain in the hands of federal and state judges. The federal court trial over South Carolina's voter ID law raised questions about how such laws might be implemented. -
A USDA report shows that 18 million households are struggling with the lingering effects of the recession. Particularly hard hit are households with children headed by single mothers who may be working but aren't earning enough to get by without assistance.
