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Following Political Contributor Influence

Following Political Contributor Influence

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The Idea:

What will change in the world because this Project happens?

The National Institute on Money in State Politics offers its beta version of Legislative Committee Analysis, http://www.followthemoney.org/pvs/index.phtml a new tool that will contribute to a healthy democracy in 50 states. It makes transparent who gives campaign funds to members of every major legislative committee in the nation. Legislative Committee Analysis will launch during freedom-of-information’s Sunshine Week: March 16-22, 2008.

The new tool is a data mashup. It links Voter’s Self-Defense System http://www.votesmart.org/official_state.php with the Institute’s 50-state comprehensive archive of political contribution records www.FollowTheMoney.org.

With simple name-the-state and name-the-committee queries, each legislator’s contribution records are displayed by source. Visitors can use the tool to monitor who raised funds from companies affected by votes legislators cast on important policy issues. They can see if legislators have relationships with special-interest contributors; and use the information to inform their own votes in 2008 elections.

The Institute collects 90,000 campaign-finance reports filed by all 16,000 legislative, judicial and statewide candidates every election, and by about 500 ballot measure committees and 250 political party committees. It acquires and scrubs the data; codes contributors to 400 business categories; and displays the records at www.FollowTheMoney.org. The Institute delivers an open-access balanced picture of money in state politics, making political donation data that is otherwise difficult to access available in a high-quality searchable format.

The Institute continues to lead the way, delivering unprecedented access to the political money trail in the states.
Often, issue groups, journalists or researchers need more extensive data sets or analytical studies conducted with an independent eye. The Institute provides extensive custom research and composite data files beyond information offered through the site’s search engine. The Institute also helps other groups program APIs and widgets to their Web sites to provide targeted data from its archive out to new users. Call 406.449.2480 M-F, 8am-5pm.

The Institute will launch yet another transparency tool later this year, Lobbyist Link. Collection and input are underway for the massive project: a 50-state searchable database of all state-registered lobbyists and their clients.

What information will people interact with to make this change?

The data mashup links the Voter’s Self-Defense System at http://www.votesmart.org/official_state.php with the Institute’s contribution records at www.FollowTheMoney.org. Project Vote Smart has compiled an immense resource of candidate biographical data, key issue votes, legislative committee assignments and other information, complete for 50 states at http://www.votesmart.org. The Institute’s contributions database includes all reports filed by state candidates, high court judicial candidates, political party committees and ballot measure committees; and it’s complete for 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006 state elections. The Institute is now working on the 2007 and 2008 elections database.

Legislative Committee Analysis displays the campaign funds raised by legislative committee members in 50 states. Visitors can go to http://www.followthemoney.org/pvs/index.phtml and select a state legislative committee to review. They can search all contributions each member received from all sources or select from 140 industry sectors that represent top contributors in most state elections, and see the funds given by each industry.

Combining Legislative Committee Analysis with legislative voting records on particular issues, users can monitor policy votes for political contributor influence. Combining the new tool with disparate databases of contract awards or other payment systems can provide transparency to contributor influence on governmental decisions.

What else have you done in this Cause Area?

MacArthur Foundation-HASTAC awarded the Institute a Digital-Learning Competition award. It supports an interactive User’s Guide at www.FollowTheMoney.org to attract and encourage youth to use the resources.

The Institute is pushing out its resources to new user groups. As a pioneer of transparency tools on the internet, we provide free programming to create APIs http://www.followthemoney.org/services/index.phtml and show how the money raised affects competitiveness http://www.followthemoney.org/database/graphs/competitive/index.phtml.

FollowTheMoney.org is a trusted source for news reporters and researchers. It serves the public-policy missions of national and state groups by promoting transparency in governmental decision-making. In-depth research reports reveal relationships between elected officials and contributors. Staff train foundation grantees and other groups how to inform advocacy and education issues across the spectrum with the data.

Cause Area:
- Public & Social Benefit
Cause Area Tags:
- Education
Previous Prize Tags:
- n2y3mashupchallenge
Project URL:
http://www.followthemoney.org/pvs/index.phtml
Supporting Organization:
Project Vote Smart
Supporting Organization URL:
http://www.votesmart.org
Financial support?:
No
City:
Helena
State/Region:
Montana
Country:
USA

The Assessment

What kind of help or resources do you need to turn your project idea into a completed mashup?

Visualization tools (eg. boundary map with zip code look-up function) at http://www.followthemoney.org/pvs/index.phtml.

Geographic Information System (GIS) software, US Census data and technical help to graphically display relationships among state political campaign contribution records and the geographic and demographic data at www.FollowTheMoney.org. Additional funding to develop, integrate and update the new features.

Case examples that illustrate correlations between contributor interests and legislative votes on policy decisions. Examples should connect steps on the money trail from contributor to legislator to legislative vote on a law or decision that relates to a contributor’s interests.

Financial and technical support for development and launch of the visualization and mapping tools described above and for Lobbyist Link, a searchable database of all state-registered lobbyists and their clients.