WASHINGTON - March 28 - With lobbying under scrutiny in Washington like never before, the Center for Responsive Politics has launched a free online database that tracks the billions of dollars that corporations, labor unions and other organizations spend each year to influence Congress and federal agencies.

Made possible by a grant from the Sunlight Foundation, the Lobbying Database on OpenSecrets.org supplements CRP’s widely cited research tracking campaign contributions. Lobbyists and their clients must report their activities twice a year, but many users find the publicly available reports cumbersome and confusing. The Center’s easily searchable Lobbying Database aims to be the most comprehensive available for free online.

“We’re trying to make lobbying more transparent for the public, just as we have shone light on campaign contributions for nearly 25 years,” CRP Research Director Sheila Krumholz said. “These two forms of political influence are so intertwined. Contributions open policymakers’ doors for lobbyists and their clients, and politicians rely on lobbyists and their clients to finance their election campaigns.”

By compiling and standardizing data collected from the central site for lobbying disclosure, the Secretary of the Senate’s Office of Public Records, CRP has designed a database that tracks lobbying of the federal government since 1998. Users can search the data in a variety of ways:

• By the name of a lobbying client, or the entity that paid for the lobbying;

• By lobbying firm or individual lobbyist, including those employed in-house by a corporation or other organization;

• By industry or type of interest group, selecting from a list of more than 100—from abortion-related causes to the wine, beer and liquor industry;

• By the issues the lobbying was intended to influence, from a list comprising nearly 80 categories;

• By the more than 200 federal agencies lobbied—from the White House to the National Endowment for the Arts.

Easy-to-read tables and graphs summarize spending as well as non-monetary ways to measure lobbying activity. When used in concert with other features of OpenSecrets, such as CRP’s tallies of campaign contributions by industry, the Lobbying Database can paint a vivid picture of how money influences politics.

The current semi-annual disclosure system has been criticized for allowing overly broad descriptions of lobbying activity and for undercounting spending, among other flaws. In its Lobbying Database, CRP aims to work within the disclosure system’s limitations and reconcile errors wherever possible. The Center welcomes feedback and suggestions by e-mail to lobbying@crp.org.

“We urge users to pay attention to our methodology and understand the limitations that the disclosure system places on the public’s ability to track lobbying,” said Krumholz, who will act as interim executive director following Larry Noble’s departure this month. “As always, we encourage people to explore our Web site and tell us when they spot something curious and worth a closer look.”

While the Web site allows anyone to research lobbying, and do it free of charge, CRP will continue to produce its own reports and analysis through OpenSecrets and the watchdog group’s online newsletter, CapitalEye.org. Political scientist Tim La Pira, who is completing his doctoral study of interest groups and lobbying, recently joined CRP as its Lobbying Researcher and will maintain the new database.

To use CRP’s new Lobbying Database, go to http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS

Since the Center for Responsive Politics’ founding in 1983, the organization has become known as a non-partisan authority on the influence of money on policy and elections—who spends money in politics and why they might be spending it. Using data from the Federal Election Commission and other sources, CRP conducts computer-based research for the news media, academics, activists and the public at large. The Center’s work is aimed at creating a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more responsive government.

Support for CRP comes from a combination of foundation grants and individual contributions. The Center accepts no contributions from businesses or labor unions.

For more information about the Center, visit OpenSecrets.org.

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