New additions to the Congress team

The new Congress hasn’t even been seated yet but we already have a glimpse of what will be one of the biggest stories in Washington. So we’re thrilled to announce that we are adding more firepower to an already loaded Congress team: Marianne LeVine and Sarah Ferris are headed to the Hill to cover the Senate and House, respectively.

Marianne came to POLITICO in 2014 to join the then-newly created POLITICO Pro labor team (now Employment and Immigration). On the labor beat, she broke news about regulations related to overtime pay, retirement advice and health and safety and wrote about minimum wage enforcement (or lack thereof) at the state level. Her coverage of domestic abuse allegations against Trump’s first Labor Secretary nominee, Andy Puzder, played a key role in the withdrawal of his nomination. More recently, Marianne co-authored the POLITICO Influence newsletter and covered the lobbying beat, where she wrote on the business community’s adjustment to the Trump administration. Marianne is originally from Redwood City, California and graduated from Stanford University in 2013 with degrees in International Relations and French. In her free time, Marianne enjoys running, yoga, spending time with friends and pretending to care about sports.

Sarah has been a budget reporter for POLITICO Pro since January 2017. She broke multiple stories this year on the massive two-year budget deal -- exposing it as almost entirely deficit-financed -- while tracking the nearly endless threat of shutdowns. With eyes on all 12 spending panels, Sarah's coverage has spanned the entire federal budget and nearly every team at Pro. Before arriving at POLITICO, Sarah covered health care at The Hill, where she reported on Democratic struggles to embrace some pieces of Obamacare. Early in her career, Sarah also blogged about state politics for The Washington Post, where she published a deeply reported investigation on flaws in the federal background check system for gun purchases. Originally from Newtown, Connecticut, Sarah studied political science at George Washington University. She grew up on a dairy farm, where her family now makes homemade ice cream. She roots for two sports teams: UConn women’s basketball and the Red Sox.

We know these two will strengthen what is already the best Congress team in the business.

Paul Zapler