Clarifying Questions

[Steve Cicala]

Hi--I'm trying to sort out what's what in the Campaign Finance data,
and was hoping you could help clarify a couple of things.

First, is calculating the total contributions to a candidate from
individuals in a given cycle as simple as adding up the amount field
for Realcode not like Z9*, and types: 10, 11, 15, 15E, 15J, 22Y
(sometimes 15C ok)? When I do this, my numbers don't match what's on
the site. (For example, Bobby Rush (N00004887) in 2000 received
$385,863 on the site. Using the criteria above, I get a total of
$296,163). What am I missing?

Second, if I'm only interested in contributions to candidates (and not
the identities of individual donors), do I have any use for
contributions to committees with recipid starting with "C" in the
individual contribution file? Shouldn't I just use the Committee to
Candidate file to calculate contributions from committees to
candidates?

Last, just to make sure I'm crystal clear on what the double-counting
problem is with the indiv and cmte files, is this scenario what's
going on?

A person gives $500 to a joint fundraising committee. This is entered
in the indiv file as $500 to recipid N*, of type 15J. This is also
entered in the cmte file as $500 from committee C* to candidate N* ?

--And the difference between joint fundraising committees and non-
joint, is that a non-joint contribution is listed in the indiv table
as going to committee C*, instead of candidate N*, so
when that committee C* eventually gives money to N*, those dollars
have not already been linked to a candidate in the indiv file?

Many Thanks,

Steve

PS--I'm putting together an NAICS - catcode crosswalk, and will email
that to the list when it's done.

[Susi]

Hello Steve,

Good questions! And I hope we never leave one unanswered for this
long again. It's been quite a busy month at CRP.

Your first point: the $385,863 for Bobby Rush in 2000 comes from the
summary reports filed by the candidate and includes non-itemized
contributions The contributions that you are summing up are those
that meet the reporting threshhold of more than $200 and are itemized
by the filer.

Second: if you are only interested in contributions to candidate
committees, you do not need to pay any attention to contributions in
the individual contributions table with recipid starting with "C".
However, if you want to include contributions to the candidates'
leadership PAC, then you'd want to add those, too.

Yes, I think that you've described the JFC problem well, but the
double counting problem can occur on a number of levels, and not just
with joint fundraising committees. For example, if you were adding up
all the money given in an election, you could not count all the money
given by individuals to PACs and then add all the money given by PACs
to candidates. I've been working with this data for years, and I
still fund myself stepping back and thinking about what's to be
included and what's not.

Thanks for your patience, and good luck with your project.

Susi


.

[Steve Toub]

On Nov 23, 1:49 pm, Susi <susi.al...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Your first point:  the $385,863 for Bobby Rush in 2000 comes from the
> summary reports filed by the candidate and includes non-itemized
> contributions  The contributions that you are summing up are those
> that meet the reporting threshhold of more than $200 and are itemized
> by the filer.

FYI, last week the FEC blog had a good explanation of how summary
reports are different from the details in the rows:

http://www.fec.gov/blog/disclosure/entry/reconciling_summaries_and_details

--SET