Identifying leadership pacs/lobby income and expense
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Bradley W. Bloch
Dec 13, 2009, 5:56:57 PM12/13/09
to OpenSecrets Open Data
Susi, et al,
Two questions:
In the committees table, in the affiliate field, you list the name of
the member sponsoring the committee if it is a leadership PAC. But is
there anywhere that you give (or is there a query that will generate)
the corresponding CID for the sponsoring member?
Second, in the lobbying table, is it correct to presume that if IsFirm
= y then amount is income to the firm and if IsFirm = no, amount is
expense of the client?
Thanks as always,
Bradley
Two questions:
In the committees table, in the affiliate field, you list the name of
the member sponsoring the committee if it is a leadership PAC. But is
there anywhere that you give (or is there a query that will generate)
the corresponding CID for the sponsoring member?
Second, in the lobbying table, is it correct to presume that if IsFirm
= y then amount is income to the firm and if IsFirm = no, amount is
expense of the client?
Thanks as always,
Bradley
Susi Alger
Dec 14, 2009, 2:05:46 PM12/14/09
to opensecret...@googlegroups.com
Hi Bradley,
The affiliate listed in the committees table is not always a member -- it may not even be a federally registered politician and, therefore, may not have a CID at all. For example, there are a number of governors and other state level politicians with federally registered PACs listed as affiliates. The format of the names of the affiliates in the committees table does not correspond to any format in the Cands or CandsCRP tables, however it's a very quick process to use the FirstLastP from the CandsCRP table or the FirstLast field in the Cands table (filter by firstelect to get members) to get 95% of the way there. Quick visual inspection or link modification tweaks of the link formula should finish the job.
As to the lobbying question, I've passed that along to our lobbying specialists and we should have an answer soon.
Susi
The affiliate listed in the committees table is not always a member -- it may not even be a federally registered politician and, therefore, may not have a CID at all. For example, there are a number of governors and other state level politicians with federally registered PACs listed as affiliates. The format of the names of the affiliates in the committees table does not correspond to any format in the Cands or CandsCRP tables, however it's a very quick process to use the FirstLastP from the CandsCRP table or the FirstLast field in the Cands table (filter by firstelect to get members) to get 95% of the way there. Quick visual inspection or link modification tweaks of the link formula should finish the job.
As to the lobbying question, I've passed that along to our lobbying specialists and we should have an answer soon.
Susi
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Mthias
Dec 14, 2009, 2:30:13 PM12/14/09
to OpenSecrets Open Data
Hi Bradley,
The answer to the second question is yes. This field is generated by
looking at the registrant and client field. If these two fields do
not match up then it means this report is disclosing a client hiring
an external firm. If newregistrant=newclient, then this is a self-
filing report describing a company's in-house lobbying so isfirm will
be null. So to count the amount of income a firm is collecting you
need to use the [use] field and isfirm field. ([use] because if there
is any amendment to the contract, you will want to use the most recent
report for that quarter.) So just set both critera isfirm=y and use=y
to compile firm income.
Matthias
The answer to the second question is yes. This field is generated by
looking at the registrant and client field. If these two fields do
not match up then it means this report is disclosing a client hiring
an external firm. If newregistrant=newclient, then this is a self-
filing report describing a company's in-house lobbying so isfirm will
be null. So to count the amount of income a firm is collecting you
need to use the [use] field and isfirm field. ([use] because if there
is any amendment to the contract, you will want to use the most recent
report for that quarter.) So just set both critera isfirm=y and use=y
to compile firm income.
Matthias
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