What are your data sources?
U.S. Congress: Our U.S. Congress legislative data comes from the Library of Congress THOMAS website through GovTrack.us. Our federal campaign contribution data is from the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org).
California: Our California legislative data is from the official Legislative Council of California website www.leginfo.ca.gov, and our source for state campaign contributions data is the National Institute on Money in State Politics.
How timely is your data?
U.S. Congress: Legislative data is updated daily. Campaign contribution data is updated about a month after its release by the Federal Election Commission.
California: We currently publish legislative data for the 2003-2004 legislative session. By Fall 2007 we will finish coding the 2005-2006 legislative session and soon after will have California data updated daily. We currently publish California campaign contributions from 2001 through 2004 with further up-to-date data coming by the end of 2007.
How do you determine the support and opposition for bills?
U.S. Congress: We obtain support and opposition data from three sources: 1. Testimony at public hearings; 2. Proprietary news databases; 3. Public statements on the websites of trade associations and other groups.
California: Our lists of support and opposition organizations come from bill analyses prepared by the California Legislature. As a bill moves through the legislature and is referred to legislative committees, staff of these committees will write bill analyses that include lists of supporters and opponents.
MAPLight.org researchers then assign interests to represent the supporting and opposing organizations. For U.S. Congress we assign interests for all organizations and industries. For California we assign interests to all organizations and industries who are centrally related to the purpose of the bill. We use a system of 400 interest categories, ranging from Accident Insurance to Wine Manufacturing, matching the system used by the National Institute on Money in State Politics and the Center for Responsive Politics to categorize campaign contributions.
Why was MAPLight.org founded?
MAPLight.org was founded to illuminate the connection between money and politics in unprecedented ways. We give citizens the tools to find out for themselves how campaign contributions affect the specific issues they care about.
Does this data prove that my representatives are ‘bought’?
MAPLight.org does not attempt to prove causation. The purpose of our database is to reveal how campaign contributions correlate with legislation, and with votes by legislators, so that citizens have key information needed to draw their own conclusions about how campaign contributions affect policy.
What are your future plans?
In the immediate future we will be introducing several new tools to provide easier analysis and more powerful access to our data. Over the next several years we will continue to publish U.S. Congress data and also expand the site to cover the ten most populous states in the country, with New York State next.
What are your funding sources?
Core funding for our U.S. Congress site is provided by the Sunlight Foundation. Other project and organizational funding comes from the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, the Arkay Foundation, and individual donors.
We are a 501©(3) nonpartisan nonprofit organization.