Changelog
A dated record of data refreshes, corrections, and methodology changes on PlainInfluence. We list only real, verifiable changes. See our corrections process if a figure looks wrong, or methodology for how the FEC / LDA / USAspending pipeline works.
Filing-address wording and combined-activity labels
Organization, home, state, rankings, and tools pages no longer say "headquartered in" for FEC/LDA filing-address states (e.g. UnitedHealth PAC→DC), and no longer label the three-channel convenience sum as "Total influence" / causal footprint. Labels say "combined activity" and state explicitly that the sum is not political influence (external-gpt-review 2026-08-10).
Public /corrections alias and identity CiteThis blocks
Added a /corrections redirect to the editorial corrections process, a public /changelog of corroborated changes, and Cite this page blocks on identity and legal pages so readers have a stable citation string and a clear path to report data issues.
Stopped treating total_influence as one population
Organization pages no longer present lobbying/contracts/contributions as shares of a single total_influence denominator (commit 704b13c). Methodology now documents the three cross-stage populations explicitly.
Honest per-route sitemap lastmod
Static and rankings sitemap entries now stamp lastmod from git or data vintage per page instead of a single portal-wide fingerprint (commit 45d01bd).
LDA lobbyist_count rebuild from first/middle/last names
Lobbyist tallies were reading a missing .name field on LDA slim objects. Rebuild uses first/middle/last and resume-safe --force (commits 5279cdc, 027bd23).
Honest org identity (no fabricated collective byline)
Removed invented collective bylines in favor of honest org identity disclosure (commits bcc90af, ad16a7b).
Download the federal political-money statistics cited on this page: federal-political-money-statistics.csv (CC0).