Campaign Contributions

Wiki ▸ Avenues of Influence ▸ Campaign Contributions

Event Information

The campaign contribution data used in the timeline comes from the Sunlight Influence Explorer API. This data is taken from OpenSecrets, which in turn gets it from the Federal Election Commission. Campaign contribution disclosures are required by a number of federal laws.

2013-2014 contribution limits are as follows:

Information about contribution limits and the history of campaign finance legislation can be found here and here.

Event Data

• Source api : Sunlight Influence Explorer API
• Endpoint documentation: http://data.influenceexplorer.com/docs/contributions/
• requires api key?: Yes, requires a Sunlight API key
• endpoint used in BFF scripts: http://transparencydata.com/api/1.0/contributions.json?apikey=API_KEY&recipient_ft=LEGISLATOR_NAME&cycle=CYCLE
• Required Credits:

Timeline Schema

Example of the fields and format of data returned from a Timeline download:

{
   "contributor_category_order":"K01",
   "contributor_category_industry":"LAWYERS/LAWFIRMS",
   "contributor_category_name":"ATTORNEYS&LAWFIRMS",
   "seat":"federal:house",
   "committee_ext_id":"",
   "seat_held":"federal:house",
   "recipient_party":"D",
   "transaction_type_description":"ContributionMadetoNon-Affiliated",
   "recipient_type":"P",
   "seat_status":"I",
   "recipient_state":"CA",
   "contributor_category":"K1000",
   "contributor_gender":"",
   "contributor_state":"",
   "recipient_category":"",
   "is_amendment":false,
   "district":"CA-08",
   "organization_name":"AmericanIntellectualPropertyLawAssn",
   "recipient_ext_id":"N00007360",
   "parent_organization_name":"",
   "contributor_address":"",
   "transaction_id":"pac2cand:2010:0483863",
   "contributor_occupation":"",
   "filing_id":"",
   "contributor_city":"",
   "recipient_state_held":"CA",
   "district_held":"CA-08",
   "recipient_name":"NancyPelosi(D)",
   "organization_ext_id":"C00156935",
   "contributor_zipcode":"",
   "transaction_namespace":"urn:fec:transaction",
   "date":"2009-06-18",
   "committee_name":"",
   "candidacy_status":false,
   "parent_organization_ext_id":"",
   "cycle":2010,
   "contributor_name":"AmericanIntellectualPropertyLawAssn",
   "contributor_type":"C",
   "contributor_employer":"",
   "seat_result":"W",
   "transaction_type":"24k",
   "amount":"1000.00",
   "contributor_ext_id":"C00156935",
   "committee_party":""
}