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money's ability to exert disproportionate and undue influence over US politics and policy is an open secret in Washington and far, far beyond the DC beltway. Countless examples of influence peddling can be found in American history books, but perhaps more important than documenting and uncovering cases of illegal influ- ence is monitoring the day-to-day machinations of the federal political system. The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), through the website OpenSecrets.org, has been doing this for 30 years, and in doing so has become one of the most credible and authoritative sources on money in US politics.
The center's many resources include the nation's most comprehen- sive sets of data and analysis on campaign contributions and campaign expenditures. These datasets can shed light not only on who is giving to federal politicians, but also which vendors benefit from the "Campaign Industrial Complex" based in and around Washington. Although most of our data come from publicly available and downloadable resources, including the Federal Election Commission, CRP has also recently begun collecting IRS Form 990s from politically active nonprofit organizations. These organizations exist outside the traditional disclosure regime but still spend millions of dollars on political activities, so the center has stepped in to provide better public access to these documents.
The center also tracks federal lobbying efforts and the revolv- ing door, which keeps lobbying firms stocked with high-value former members and connected staffers from the government. In addition, CRP creates and publishes the data on personal finances of members of Congress and key government officials as one additional source of information on potential conflicts of interest. All this data is freely available on OpenSecrets.org in order to make good on the promise that public records are indeed the public's records and that access should be real and meaningful. It is not just the people's business but in fact their obligation to find and use all pertinent information available to them to inform themselves to better hold their representatives and their government accountable for what is being done in their names.
The connection to corruption is clear: when conflicts of inter- est abound, as they do when private money fills the coffers of public servants, the opportunities for rent-seeking and quid quo pro corrup- tion and...