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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In One Damn Thing After Another, Bill Barr alternates between castigating and exonerating. He catalogs Trump's offenses yet casts him as the latest victim of dishonest media and "the radical Left." -
Even when under maximum pressure, presidents have viewed the speech as a unique opportunity to make their case to the rest of the government, to the nation as a whole and to the wider world as well. -
For years, Mitch McConnell converted Donald Trump's heat to power the conservative agenda. Now he needs to again harness that insurgent energy, a challenge when Trump's heat is directed at him. -
In a pointed message to their international critics, the two autocrats declared it was only up to their own people "to decide whether their State is a democratic one." -
From George Washington's warning against "foreign entanglements" to Donald Trump's "America First," the pledge to keep the focus close to home has been almost as constant as the oath of office itself. -
Yet these early reversals haven't always been hobbling. On the contrary, three of the past four presidents elected — and five of the past eight — have recovered from shaky starts to win re-election. -
The filibuster was once a rarely used tool for holding up Senate business. Now, it's a regular (still powerful) feature; some Democrats want it changed. Here are answers to your filibuster questions.
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If America has another civil war, it is more likely to be a war within the states than between them. Citizens of any state of any size, red or blue, may not have to go far to find a fight. -
Tensions are driven by the still-divisive personality of former President Trump, by issues such as vaccines and mandates and by the prospect of big Republican gains in the elections of 2022 and 2024. -
One of the lessons from inflationary eras past is that voters are less interested in causal responsibility than in forcing a change. In other words, if you are in office now, you are holding the bag.
