Lobbying Data

[steven...@gmail.com]

To whom it may concern,

 

First, I would like to thank the CRP team for providing me such a wonderful and great data. I know all of you in CRP are working very hard so that we can have a comprehensive data.

 

However, I have few questions on lobbying data.

 

1) Fields that need to be taken into consideration.

From previous threads:

-Susi explained that the fields that we need to consider depends on what we want. I would like to have the total lobbying expenditure for an organization in a particular year.

Thus, I understand that "Use" field=y is necessary. https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!searchin/opensecrets-open-data/lobby/opensecrets-open-data/FtqDuEuRn7Q/O1Bk5XpbdhcJ

However, after reading https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/opensecrets-open-data/KAqBUajX0jA should I also be considering the Ind=Y? This field is only important if I am caluclating industry lobbying expense right?

Also, IncludeNSFS=blank and Self field (type of filling) generally are not important unless you are considering their affiliates' activities right? What I understand from the User Manual is that Self field with "c" and "b" generally affects those who are considering the industry lobbying expenditure. Am I right?

 

 

2) Annual lobbying expenditure

According to http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/methodology.php 

 

"Annual lobbying expenditure and income totals on this site are calculated by adding mid-year totals and year-end totals. Whenever a lobbying report is amended, income/expense figures from the amendment are generally used instead of those from the original filing. Similarly, where a termination report is filed, generally figures from that report replace those of the original filing. Often, however, Center staff determine that the income/expenditures on the amendment or termination report are inaccurate. In those instances, figures from the original filing are used."

 

Should the annual lobbying expenditure and income totals are calculated by adding mid-year totals and year-end totals, then why the midyear report figures are greater than the year end report figures even though no amendments reports for that particular year?

Are you trying to mean that we have to calculate the total annual lobbying expenditure manually by adding up the lobbying expenditure in mid-year report with lobbying expenditure in year-end report (Field="typelong")? To facilitate understanding, I have attached a document that extracts 2 companies that are having the above mentioned problem.

In fact, someone posted a thread on this issue at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!searchin/opensecrets-open-data/lobby/opensecrets-open-data/JAcaep7Zmmc/I4YVwdVym8QJ , but has received no reply.

  

 

Hope to hear from you soon.

 

My sincere thank you in advance.

 

regards,

steven 

[Daniel Auble]

Thanks for your question, Steven.

1) To find the total lobbying expenditures by a group, use the IND field. The IND field uses information from several other fields (USE, SELF, INCLUDENSFS) to determine which records to count. As you said, the SELF and INCLUDENSFS fields relate to industry calculations involving affiliates.

2) To find annual totals, add the mid-year total to the year-end total (add quarterly totals for more recent years). According to the filing rules (both now and in the past), filings should not be cumulative throughout the year and should report the expenditures for the distinct filing periods. If filers have reported cumulative totals in the past, they were making a mistake and there is no variable that makes it easy to identify them. Having said that, it will be a good diagnostic for us to look at those that appear to have potential problems of this kind to see if we can clear them up.

Regards, 

Dan Auble

Senior Researcher

[Steven Low]

Dear Dan Auble,

Thank you for the prompt reply. I deeply appreciate your reply and I find your reply is helpful.

Once again, thank you for the explanation and the data.

Also, extending my thanks to all in CRP.

Regards,
steven

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