By: Charles Bowen Are you thinking politics again yet? The approach of Labor Day signals the unofficial start of the fall general election campaign. And once again, we're likely to find most candidates quite eager to talk about the issues and even more eager to talk about each other.
Often what they are not so enthusiastic about discussing is the source of their campaign financing and the vested interests of their principal donors. For all the recent talk of campaign finance reform, the source of political money -- especially "soft money" -- still is the dirty little secret of many a campaign. But at least now it can be an open secret.
OpenSecrets.org can once again be your guide to the money in U.S. elections. It is operated by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research group based in Washington, D.C., and devoted to tracking contributions in politics, and that money's effect on elections and public policy. Covered in this space in earlier columns, the center conducts computer-based research on campaign finance issues for the news media, academics, activists, and the public at large.
To use this valuable resource in your own work, visit the site at
http://opensecrets.org, where a busy opening screen has links to breaking news in the field of campaign finance reform, alerts on potential hot spots (at this writing, a political alert focused on contributions from prescription drug makers), and search engines for finding your local politicians.
"Local" is a big word around here. In fact, one of the tabs at the top of the site's screens is "Get Local." Click it and select either "Pick a State" or "Enter a ZIP Code" from the drop-down menu to reach a page devoted to finding how the money trails for federal candidates run from your region. Each state's political contributions are summarized, with totals from the latest political season, breakdowns for Democrats and Republicans, rankings in the nation, as well as totals for individual donations, soft money, and political action committee donations.
Other powerful tabs at the top of the screen include:
* "Who's Giving," with breakouts on specific industries, lookup tools for finding specific donors around the country, as well as lobbyists, PACs, and soft-money generators.
* "Who's Getting." Here are search facilities for finding the money records of candidates for Congress and the White House and political parties. The facilities can be used in a variety of ways. For instance, suppose you're interested in learning the primary contributors to the members of the Senate's powerful Appropriations Committee. Using the "Who's Getting" tab, you can select "Congressional Committees" from the drop-down menu, then choose "Appropriations" from the subsequent page. The site then gives an overview of that committee's work, names of the leadership, and a graph summarizing where most of the money comes from. Additional options at the left of the screen let you look at the contributions received by individual members, the top contributors to the committee, and the top industries among its donors.
Other considerations for using OpenSecrets in your writing and editing:
1. If you just can't get enough of this stuff, you might want to sign up for the site's newest feature, CapitalEye, a money-in-politics online newsletter. Just visit the site (
http://www.capitaleye.org) to read the latest. You also can enter your e-mail address for regular alerts when new material is posted.
2. Speaking of news, click "News and Issues" at the top of any OpenSecrets page to get a list of hyperlinked headlines to recent stories about campaign contributions and expenditures. On that page, you also can sign up for e-mail alerts about "Big Money."
3. For more about the Center for Responsive Politics, check out "The Basics" tab at the top of any OpenSecrets screen.
To see Bowen's last 10 columns,
click here. Previous columns may be purchased in our
paid archives. Search for "Bowen" in the "Author" field.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here