Data Sources
PlainInfluence aggregates three distinct federal databases. Understanding where the data comes from — and its limitations — makes you a better researcher.
1. Federal Election Commission (FEC)
The FEC is the independent regulatory agency that administers and enforces federal campaign finance law. It collects mandatory disclosure reports from every federal candidate committee, PAC, Super PAC, and party committee operating in U.S. elections.
What we use
- Committee master file — committee IDs, types, connected organizations, treasurers
- Candidate master file — candidate names, offices, parties, states, districts
- PAC-to-candidate contributions — the primary data for PlainInfluence politician profiles
Coverage
Current dataset: 2024 election cycle. PAC contributions only (not individual donors). Updated when new FEC bulk data files are released.
Source
2. Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA)
The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 requires lobbyists to register with the Secretary of the Senate and report their lobbying activities quarterly. These filings include client names, lobbying firms, issue areas lobbied, and spending amounts.
What we use
- Registrant and client records — which organizations hire lobbyists
- Lobbying activity reports — issue areas, spending amounts, and specific agencies contacted
- Spending aggregations — total lobbying expenditures by organization and issue area
Coverage
Current dataset: 2023-2024 filing periods. Updated when new quarterly filings are released by the Senate.
Source
3. USAspending.gov
USAspending.gov is the official public source for federal spending data, mandated by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) and the DATA Act. It aggregates contract award data from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS).
What we use
- Prime contract awards — vendor names, award amounts, awarding agencies
- Agency breakdowns — which federal departments award contracts to each vendor
- Contract totals — aggregate award values by organization
Coverage
Current dataset: recent fiscal year contract awards. Updated when new data is published on USAspending.gov.
Source
Entity Resolution
The three databases above use different naming conventions and identifiers. Boeing might appear as "The Boeing Company" in FEC data, "Boeing Co" in lobbying filings, and "BOEING CO THE" in USAspending records. PlainInfluence's entity resolution pipeline normalizes names and links records to create unified organization profiles.
This process is necessarily imperfect. We optimize for precision (avoiding false matches) over recall (catching every possible match). If an organization appears unlinked, it may be because the names across databases were too dissimilar for confident matching.
What Is Not Included
- Individual donor data — PlainInfluence tracks PAC contributions, not individual donor records (available directly from the FEC).
- State and local campaign finance — only federal data is included.
- Grants and financial assistance — only procurement contracts from USAspending, not grants.
- Unregistered influence — shadow lobbying and grassroots campaigns below LDA thresholds are not captured.
This page describes our data sources and methodology. PlainInfluence is an independent platform and is not affiliated with the FEC, U.S. Senate, or USAspending.gov. All underlying data is public domain.