Getting a handle on federal campaign cash
There was a time when tracking campaign cash was a straightforward affair. But as a result of actions by Congress and the courts, and the endless creativity of political leaders over the last decade, the money trail has never been more twisted and difficult to follow.
That's particularly true in this election, the first since passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.
Gone are the days when journalists covering state races could blissfully ignore the federal system and vice versa. There is no such thing as a purely federal or purely state election any more.
Both parties, along with a growing number of outside interest groups, have devised sophisticated national strategies and fund-raising networks to put money into races at all levels, from the state house to the White House.
The bulk of campaign cash continues to flow through traditional fund-raising sources, such as party committees and PACs. But a significant amount of money comes under the radar, most often through political nonprofit organizations that do not disclose their activities in the usual places.
Over the past four years, the Center for Public Integrity has tracked at least $500 million in activity by these groups, including just over $100 million in the past 15 months alone. These groups do not disclose their activities to any state or federal election authorities, if at all. This makes them ideal conduits for contributors who wish to have an impact on an election with as little fanfare as possible.
As an unfortunate result, journalists today must be just as sophisticated as those they are covering. They must play the part of attorney, accountant, politico and sleuth to get a clear picture.
Fortunately, there is a wealth of data available either in a downloadable, electronic format or searchable on the Web that can help journalists paint a true picture of who gives to whom and why.
Investigative Reporters and Editors is developing workshops on how to use campaign finance data to report on these political nonprofit organizations.
Downloadable data
Raw campaign finance data for most federal races can be downloaded from two Federal Election Commission Internet sites: the electronic filing site (http://herndon2.sdrdc.com/dcdev) or its FTP server (www.fec.gov/finance/newftp1.htm). The exception is Senate candidates and party caucus committees (specifically, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign and National Republican Senatorial committees), which are exempt from filing electronically. The only source for electronic data for these Senate candidate and party committees is from the commission's FTP site.
Both sources have their pluses and minuses. The advantage to the electronic filing site is speed and convenience. Reports appear almost as soon as they are submitted by the respective campaigns, making deadline reporting easier than ever. Also, electronically filed forms include expenditures made by the committee, the FTP data does not.
Electronic filings are viewable online or they may be downloaded in a comma-delimited format, which can be easily imported into a spreadsheet or database manager.
(For more information about working with the electronically filed data, see the July-August 2002 Uplink. For further reference see www.claptrap.org/ire/ElectronicFilingandtheFECPart1.pdf and www.claptrap.org/ire/ElectronicFilingandtheFECPart2.pdf).
In contrast, the FTP data is much harder to work with because, among other things, the files can be quite large and require quite a bit of cleanup. (The IRE and NICAR Database Library provides a cleaned version of this database to journalists at a nominal cost. See www.ire.org/datalibrary/databases/fec for more information).
The biggest drawback to using the FTP data is the lag time, which can range for a few days for electronically filed reports to as much as a month for those Senate filings that must be manually entered.
On the other hand, the data is the official electronic record. Electronic filings are considered preliminary because FEC officials have not examined them. Furthermore, the FTP data is designed to be maintained over the long term. Each record in the database is uniquely identified, which allows the data to be updated correctly when filings are later amended (a frequent occurrence).
NICAR has collected literally dozens of tipsheets covering campaign finance data. You can search for tipsheets on the Web at www.ire.org/resourcecenter/initial-search-tipsheets.html.
Other resources
In addition to raw campaign finance data, there are some other sources journalists should know about. Under the new law, funds used to pay for what are called "electioneering communications" must be fully disclosed within 24 hours, even if the group sponsoring is a nonfederal entity or even an individual.
Electioneering communications are a subset of what has come to be known as "issue ads" - commercials that are virtually indistinguishable from regular campaign ads, but do not specifically call for the election or defeat of a candidate. These ads proliferated over the past decade because they could be bought with unregulated soft money. The new law tries to reign in some issue ads by restricting some groups from airing them within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election, and requires full disclosure from other groups or individuals who buy such ads.
These filings are posted on the FEC Web site at www.fec.gov/pages/electioneering.html.
The FEC also has launched a searchable database of enforcement activities, which can be found at http://eqs.sdrdc.com/eqs/searcheqs. The interface allows users to search for cases in any number of ways - by respondent, by case number or even a fuzzy word-matching scheme.
Unfortunately, the system only includes newer cases - those made public since January 2002. But it includes all the documents associated with the case in a searchable format, even if they were not specifically submitted in that format. For more information about the system and its limits, see http://eqs.sdrdc.com/eqs/eqs_info.html.
Political nonprofits
A more recent development has been the rise of political nonprofit organizations, which are generally (though not entirely accurately) referred to as Section 527 organizations. The name refers to the section of the federal tax code under which these groups and all political committees achieve tax-exempt status. But the difference between 527s and other political committees is enormous.
For one, the 527s don't file with the FEC or any state elections regulatory agency (unless that state's law specifically requires it). Prior to 2000, they didn't submit any financial disclosure documents of any kind. Since then, they have filed with the Internal Revenue Service, and those forms are available at http://eforms.irs.gov.
A few words of caution: because of widespread confusion about which committees are required to file, there are literally tens of thousands of erroneous reports on the IRS site, most of them from state and local candidates who already file with their state elections authorities. The Center reviewed these filings and found about 500 committees that fit the definition of a true 527 out of more than 20,000 filed with the IRS.
For about the past year, most of these committees have been required to file electronically with the IRS. Those filings can be downloaded in a comma-delimited format from the IRS Web site. The download page includes a very detailed document that explains the contents and layout of the data file, which is a bit confusing.
The database we created at The Center for Public Integrity is searchable and includes data back to 2000. (See www.publicintegrity.org/527). Other groups have tracked 527 activities. The Center for Responsive Politics (www.crp.org) also has posted a searchable database of filings from last year forward and includes the largest 527 organizations active in federal elections. PoliticalMoneyLine (at http://politicalmoneyline.com) has tracked 527 activity for several years, but details of its database are restricted to subscribers and its information is not as comprehensive as that offered by the Center for Responsive Politics or The Center for Public Integrity.
Contact Aron Pilhofer by e-mail at apilhofer@publicintegrity.org.
Contact Derek Willis by e-mail at derek@thescoop.org