Bulk Data access unresponsive — looking for Cmtes/Indivs industry codes (PrimCode/RealCode)
Cameron
Hi all,
My daughter and I are in the process of building Billworth.org, a civic-transparency project that maps financial relationships between members of Congress, their donors, and their votes. We're trying to properly classify campaign contributions by industry/sector, and I could use some help from anyone who's navigated this recently.
What we're trying to get: the Cmtes file (for the PrimCode field per committee) and the Indivs / PACs / Pac_Other files (for the RealCode field per contribution), so we can join those catcodes against the CRP_Categories crosswalk and classify our existing FEC contribution data by industry. We already have CRP_Categories loaded — we just need the files that actually carry PrimCode/RealCode on committees and transactions.
Where we're stuck: several weeks ago I completed the official Bulk Data signup at opensecrets.org/bulk-data/signup and have sent follow-up emails since, with no response on any of them. I don't have any indication of whether the request is in a queue, stuck, or lost.
What I'm hoping this group can help with:
- Has anyone successfully gotten Bulk Data access approved recently (say, in the last 6–12 months)? Roughly how long did it take, and was there a specific contact or process that actually got a response?
- Is there a different/better channel than the general signup form and email for a stalled application — e.g., a specific staff contact, a different support address, or a known backlog?
- Is the Cmtes/Indivs/PACs/Pac_Other file set still the right one for committee- and transaction-level industry codes, or has that moved under the new site/OS Pro setup? (Just want to make sure I'm asking for the right files before I follow up again.)
Cycles we need: 2018, 2020, 2022, 2024, and 2026.
Happy to share more about the project if useful. Any pointers — even "email X instead" — would genuinely help. Thanks for reading this far.
Cameron Forlong
