OpenSecrets
Data on campaign finance, lobbying, and spending in U.S. politics
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Data on campaign finance, lobbying, and spending in U.S. politics
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OpenSecrets is a nonpartisan, independent, and nonprofit organization tracking money in U.S. politics and its impact on elections and public policy. The page has four main categories: Candidates & Officeholders, Elections & Fundraising Data, Industries & Interest Groups, and Lobbying.
Candidates & Officeholders - this section is divided into five subsections:
- this section includes lists on current and former individuals who held political positions on federal and state level in the U.S. - judicial officeholders, governors, state commissioners, members of congress. The data is presented as lists with the name of the individual, the state they represent and their current position.
- lists the names of current and past members of congress, including new ones joining and outgoing ones and shows how much they have managed to fundraise for their campaigns and how much they have spent so far.
Each name on the list is hyperlinked to a separate profile with additional spending and fundraising data, including names of donors.
Elections & Fundraising Data - this section includes spending by candidates in presidential and congressional elections. The two most relevant subsections are:
Industries & Interest Groups - political action committees, industries, non-governmental organizations who spend money to support political candidates and issues
Lobbying - Companies, labor unions, trade associations and other influential organizations' spending on Congress and federal agencies to lobby for special interests.
Other ways to get data from OpenSecrets
RESTful API functionality is available only after registration, the user must accept the terms of use and should access the data for non-commercial purposes only.
The data is publicly available, but OpenSecrets does ask to be cited or credited if data collected by them or their own reports is being used.
OpenSecrets is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, charitable organization based in Washington, DC.
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This section also includes spending by Leadership s (Political Action Committees). Each PAC is hyperlinked to a separate profile with additional spending by party and by election cycle.
- shows cumulative donation data to each committee broken down by industry.
- a deep dive into the three most recent administrations with articles, reports, names of appointees by the administrations. Each profile contains different information and the administrations only include the Biden, the Trump and the Obama administrations.
- ranks members of congress by richest and poorest by their own income, net worth, financial liabilities and assets. Each name is hyperlinked to a profile with additional information.
- data reported by outside spending groups to the Federal Election Commission. There is a separate section devoted to dark money groups – politically active nonprofits that aren't required to publicly disclose their donors. The information includes data on political recipients, however it only shows the amounts received and rarely the donors.
- a search by name of a donor - these are individuals and companies. This is the most user-friendly and useful feature for small investigations as it allows searching by keyword.
- allows tracking of political spending online (Facebook and Google) by advertiser and each advertiser has its own separate profile with specifics (Including which Facebook pages ran the ads); and by TV and Radio - contains pdf files submitted to the Federal Communications Commission by broadcasters around the country.
- a sub-page with articles on dark money as well as who spent and where that dark money went.
- cumulative data on which industries spent money. Also for each interest group there is a summary of political giving dating back to the 1990 election cycle (breakdowns by type of contribution & political party top contributors); a list of organizations (usually U.S. companies) that have given the most from that industry through their employees and political action committees; a list of candidates that have received the most from a particular industry.
- Each organization profile tracks campaign contributions from the organization's employees and members, its PAC and from the organization itself, only when it gives to outside groups. Each profile also tracks the organization’s lobbying activity to influence public policy, as well as its outside spending to influence elections.
- groups, formed under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, primarily are involved in issue advocacy. Some organizations, including labor unions, use 527 accounts to support or oppose state and local candidates and contribute to other committees. The data is presented as simple lists with contributors' names and amounts.
- includes data in Super PACs and leadership PACs. This subsection is useful when tracking whether a candidate received money for a specifically formed action committee dedicated to them and whether a PAC has donated to more than one candidate. Information like this can uncover links between donor spending and political issues they might want to achieve through funding a candidate.
- OpenSecrets' own research on specific topics with lots of articles and data. For example the climate change issue delves deep into spending, environmental groups activism and environmental lobbying.
- includes top lobbying contracts, agencies, issues lobbied, bills that lobbyists worked on, contracts between lobbying firms and companies. Also allows to search by name:
- uses the semi-annual reports foreign agents are required to file with the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to calculate the countries with the highest spending. Allows search by country and the results provide detailed information on which companies and individuals spent money on lobbying and advocacy.
: database documenting the individuals who have worked in both the public sector and lobbying firms and may have conflicts of interest. Allows search by name of individuals, congressional committees, lobbying firms, or employment positions. This submenu can be used to research which PR or lobbying firms have hired former staffers of the White House, congressional or house committees, or which former members of the House or the Congress are lobbying for particular interests.
You can get bulk data from the OpenSecrets database . This is where you can download compressed text files of the data OpenSecrets creates from raw data provided by various government agencies.
You can also get . OpenSecrets offers custom data request and licensing on federal and state-level datasets for a price. According to their website, the data spans more than 30 years, and includes political contributions, expenditures, candidate lists and lobbying activities. The information can be delivered as summary data, itemized transaction data or customized research depending on the needs. OpenSecrets did not specify the pricing for this, but it appears payment go through PayPal.
Registrations for the API use are .
According to OpenSecrets' , employment histories for registered lobbyists may be incomplete prior to 1998 because the Senate Office of Public Records has not made registrations and reports available electronically for those years.
According to OpenSecrets' the content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Materials written by them are free to distribute or cite, but OpenSecrets should be credited. For permission to reprint for commercial uses, contact OpenSecrets: info@opensecrets.org.
OpenSecrets has a youtube series on lobbying: (video)
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OpenSecrets: with a glossary and articles as well as a Follow the Money
OpenSecrets: with questions from other users, answers from the organization - a FAQ resource of sorts, but better.
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