Federal data guide
Money, Politics & Government Spending Data
A guide to the federal datasets that follow money through American politics and government — who funds campaigns, who pays to lobby, where the government spends its trillions, and how members of Congress vote and trade. Each links to a full deep-dive, and the cross-dataset analysis joins them.
Money and politics leave an unusually rich federal trail. The FEC publishes campaign contributions and the committees, PACs, and super PACs that move them; the Senate and House lobbying disclosures record who is paid to influence Washington; USAspending.gov accounts for the contracts, grants, and loans the government awards; and Congress’s own votes, research service, and stock trades are public. The hard and valuable move is joining them — connecting a donor to a contractor to a vote — which the cross-dataset guide below walks through. The guides group the deep-dives by source.
Campaign finance (FEC)
Contributions, committees, and the outside-money vehicles.
- FEC Committees: The Federal Registry of Every PAC, Super PAC, and Campaign Committee — every PAC and committee
- FEC Committee Filings: The Campaign Finance Database Behind $14 Billion in Election Spending — the filings behind the money
- Follow the money: mapping dark money and super PAC flows with FEC bulk data — working the FEC bulk data
- FEC Super PAC and Dark Money Data: The Federal Database Behind Outside Political Spending — super PACs and dark money
- FEC Campaign Finance Enforcement: The Federal Database Behind Matters Under Review — campaign-finance enforcement
Lobbying
Who is paid to influence Washington.
- Federal Lobbying Disclosures: The Public Record of Who Is Paid to Influence Washington — the lobbying disclosure record
- Senate LDA Lobbying Disclosures: Mapping $4 Billion in Annual Influence Spending — mapping the influence spend
Federal spending (USAspending, grants)
Where the government’s trillions go.
- USASpending.gov: The Federal Spending Database Behind $6 Trillion in Annual Contracts, Grants, and Loans — the full spending database
- USASpending Contracts: The Federal Record of Every Dollar the Government Buys — every contract dollar
- USASpending Subawards: The Federal Database Behind Sub-Grant and Sub-Contract Flow Tracking — sub-award flow tracking
- Grants.gov: The Federal Database Behind $500 Billion in Annual Federal Grant Opportunities — federal grant opportunities
Congress
How members vote, research, and trade.
- Congressional Voting Records: The Federal Database Behind Every House and Senate Roll Call Vote — every roll-call vote
- Trading on the inside: using STOCK Act filings to track congressional stock transactions — congressional stock trades
- CRS Reports: The Congressional Research Service Database Behind US Policy Analysis — the in-house policy research
Cross-dataset analyses
Synthesis guide that joins several of the datasets above.
- Following the Money: Joining Federal Campaign Finance, Lobbying, and Spending Data — donor → lobbyist → contractor, joined
More guides at Federal data guides, or browse all writing and the full dataset catalog.