Today, we at OpenSecrets.org
are unveiling our newest tool to track the influence of organizations
here in Washington: at-a-glance profiles that tie together the many
different types of information the Center for Responsive Politics
collects on any given organization, including campaign contributions,
lobbying expenses and even how many members of Congress invest in a
company. In the past, we've maintained all of this data, but unless an
organization qualified as a "heavy hitter," the various pieces of information were found in separate locations.
The new profiles, which can be found in the "Organizations"
section under the "Influence & Lobbying" tab on our menu bar, cover
over 20,000 organizations that we've identified, including
corporations, labor unions and trade organizations. Profiles for
individual organizations can also be found by searching for them through
the main search tool.
Not only do the new
organizational profiles collect all the relevant bits of information we
offer to help you better understand an organization's influence in
Washington, they also include rankings so you can see just where a
particular group falls on the spectrum. And they offer new analysis and
angles on data that has always been on our site, but has never been
mashed up in this way. For instance, not only does a profile show the
basics of an organization's lobbying
activities (lobbying expenses and issues lobbied); it also, for the
first time, displays which bill was the subject of the greatest amount
of lobbying by the entity, and which lobbyists the organization employed
that have spun through the revolving door. Previously, users would have
had to go to a separate page for each of those pieces of information.
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