[Infowarrior] - OpenSecrets.org Goes OpenData

[Richard Forno]

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/04/opensecretsorg-goes-opendata.html

OpenSecrets.org Goes OpenData

Published by Communications on April 13, 2009 12:24 PM | Permalink

Award-winning website from the Center for Responsive Politics now  
provides 20 years of downloadable money-in-politics data--for free

WASHINGTON -- Politicians, prepare yourselves. Lobbyists, look out.  
Today the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics is putting 200  
million data records from the watchdog group's archive directly into  
the hands of citizens, activists, journalists and anyone else  
interested in following the money in U.S. politics.

For the first time in CRP's 26-year history, the nonprofit research  
group's most popular data archives are fully and freely downloadable  
for non-commercial purposes from the Center's website,  
OpenSecrets.org--a four-time Webby winner for best politics site  
online. OpenSecrets.org will remain the go-to independent source for  
most users interested in tracking money's political influence and, in  
fact, the site has some new general-interest features as of today.  
(More on those below.)

With today's announcement, skilled data-divers can explore the  
information that's already aggregated on OpenSecrets.org to its full  
depth. Web developers and database experts can grab federal money-in- 
politics data that CRP's researchers have standardized and coded, and  
mash it up with other data sets. Timelines, charts, maps, other  
graphics and mobile applications are just some of the projects that  
could result--all powered by CRP's unparalleled data.

"Putting our data into more hands will put more eyes on Washington  
and, we hope, engage more Americans in their government," CRP  
Executive Director Sheila Krumholz said. "We hope that more people  
counting cash will lead to more people making change."

The OpenSecrets OpenData initiative is being generously underwritten  
by a three-year $1.2 million grant from Sunlight Foundation, which  
supports uses of the Internet to promote greater transparency of  
government and the interplay in Washington between money and public  
policy.

"Building on its outstanding and long-earned reputation for accuracy  
and integrity, CRP is giving the public the keys to take government  
transparency to the next level," said Ellen Miller, Sunlight  
Foundation's executive director and co-founder. "This will have a long- 
term impact, undoubtedly inspiring many effective and creative uses of  
the data by civic hackers, journalists and bloggers."

Center's Researchers Clean Up, Categorize Government Data

The following data sets, along with a user guide, resource tables and  
other documentation, are now available in CSV format (comma-separated  
values, for easy importing) through OpenSecrets.org's Action Center at http://www.opensecrets.org/action/data.php 
:


     * CAMPAIGN FINANCE: 195 million records dating to the 1989-1990  
election cycle, tracking campaign fundraising and spending by  
candidates for federal office, as well as political parties and  
political action committees. CRP's researchers add value to Federal  
Election Commission data by cleaning up and categorizing contribution  
records. This allows for easier totaling by industry and company or  
organization, to measure special-interest influence.

     * LOBBYING: 3.5 million records on federal lobbyists, their  
clients, their fees and the issues they reported working on, dating to  
1998. Industry codes have been applied to this data, as well.

     * PERSONAL FINANCES: Reports from members of Congress and the  
executive branch that detail their personal assets, liabilities and  
transactions in 2004 through 2007. The reports covering 2008 will  
become available to the public in June, and the data will be available  
for download once CRP has keyed those reports.

     * 527 ORGANIZATIONS: Electronically filed financial records  
beginning in the 2004 election cycle for the shadowy issue-advocacy  
groups known as 527s, which can raise unlimited sums of money from  
corporations, labor unions and individuals.

To download bulk data from OpenSecrets.org, users must register on the  
site and agree to prominently credit the Center for Responsive  
Politics, along with other terms of service. CRP is making its data  
available through a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share  
Alike license, which allows users to remix, tweak, build upon and  
share the Center's work non-commercially. CRP will continue to offer  
its data to commercial users for a negotiable fee.

OpenSecrets.org also offers a number of APIs (Application Programming  
Interfaces) to give users direct access via web programming to data  
displayed on OpenSecrets.org. Web developers are already using these  
APIs to display OpenSecrets data on their web pages and create mashups  
using live, up-to-date data.

Users can also share CRP data using OpenSecrets.org's widgets, which  
can be placed easily on any website or blog. New widgets for the 2010  
election cycle are in development.

Another New Feature: Enhanced Politician Profiles

In addition to making its data archives available, today the Center  
has enhanced its online campaign finance profiles for members of  
Congress. Visitors to OpenSecrets.org now have three options for  
viewing the top industries and contributors supporting a particular  
lawmaker: 1) money raised by the politician's campaign committee, 2)  
money raised by the politician's leadership PAC or 3) money raised by  
the campaign and PAC combined. More than 300 members of Congress are  
also linked to a political action committee, ostensibly to raise money  
to support other members of their party.

"Campaign committees and leadership PACs are two of the deepest  
pockets in a politician's coat," Krumholz said, "so it's important to  
watch them together to see who's potentially building the most  
influence with a lawmaker."

OpenSecrets.org's enhanced profiles for members of Congress also now  
allow users to download deeper tables of data-aggregated data and  
"top" rankings, but not individual records, in a variety of formats  
with one easy click. This feature will be integrated into other  
sections of OpenSecrets.org in the future.

Krumholz said, "All these enhancements to OpenSecrets.org are about  
one thing: showing more people how money's influence on politics  
affects their lives--and empowering them to do something about it."

#  #  #

OpenSecrets.org's bulk data is now available for download through the  
site's Action Center at
http://www.opensecrets.org/action/data.php.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS
The Center for Responsive Politics is the nation's premier research  
group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and  
public policy. For more than 25 years the nonpartisan, nonprofit  
Center has aimed to create a more educated voter, an involved  
citizenry and a more responsive government. CRP's award-winning  
website, OpenSecrets.org, is the most comprehensive resource for  
campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis available anywhere.  
For other organizations and news media, CRP's exclusive data powers  
their online features tracking money in politics. CRP relies on  
support from a combination of foundation grants and individual  
contributions. The Center accepts no contributions from businesses,  
labor unions or trade associations.