In 1975, Congress created the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to administer and enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) - the statute that governs the financing of federal elections. The duties of the FEC, which is an independent regulatory agency, are to disclose campaign finance information, to enforce the provisions of the law such as the limits and prohibitions on contributions, and to oversee the public funding of Presidential elections.
Center for Responsive Politics (aka "Open Secrets")
Celebrating its 25th year in 2008, the Center for Responsive Politics is the nation’s premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy. The nonpartisan, nonprofit Center aims to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more responsive government. CRP's award-winning Web site, OpenSecrets.org, is amongt the most comprehensive resource for campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis. For other organizations and news media, CRP's exclusive data powers their online features tracking money in politics. CRP relies on support from a combination of foundation grants and individual contributions. The Center accepts no contributions from businesses, labor unions or trade associations.
This project is an historic undertaking. Citizens come together, not in selfish interest or to support one candidate over another, but to defend democracy. It is an extraordinary gathering of people committed to one purpose: to strengthen the most essential component of democracy -- access to information -- even as it suffers grave attacks from candidates and political parties, many who are now willing to manipulate information and deceive voters. (Do you think there are only three, maybe four parties with candidates for president? Go here to see otherwise. And for New Mexico-specific data click here. )
CQ MoneyLine is the leading source of comprehensive, timely and objective campaign finance and lobbying information available. With campaign donation and expenditure data dating to the 1979-80 election cycle, CQ MoneyLine helps you analyze the flow of money through the political system. The daily news briefs, information on individual contributions to candidates, party committees and 527 organizations and related campaign finance data on the front page is generally available free of charge to anyone with a Web browser and access to the Internet. Only subscribers have access to the information available on the PACs/527s, Candidates and Lobbying pages of the site. This includes complete financial profiles for PACs, 527s, candidates and lobbying firms as well as advanced search features and compiled reports.
Only nonpartisan, nonprofit organization revealing the influence of campaign money on state-level elections and public policy in all 50 states. Our comprehensive and verifiable campaign-finance database and relevant issue analyses are available for free through our Web site FollowTheMoney.org.
The job of lobbyists - whether paid or unpaid - is to influence public officials to support a particular point of view. State legislatures have passed laws regulating lobbyists to ensure a distance between the lobbyists' legitimate role and the interests of the public at large. Many states' statutes include separate codes of ethics for lobbyists. These codes specify registration fees, disclosure requirements and other regulations and prohibitions. In addition to any laws they must follow, lobbyists have their own code of ethics: American League of Lobbyists Code of Ethics
State Lobbying Regulation Contacts
Secretary of State
State Capitol North Annex, Suite 300
Santa Fe, NM 87503
T: (505) 827-3600 or (800) 477-3632
F: (505) 827-3634
Obama leads the money chase in key counties: Scouring the latest campaign finance data for a Palin bounce, other trends
MSNBC story based on campaign contributions through August 2008.
Click here for data-base driven map of contributions by county for all states. You may have to scroll down on this page a bit.
Excel files with the full county picture
Besides our online file of counties, you can download Excel files with money raised in the 238 battleground counties or money raised in counties in every state. Counties will be listed in those files only if candidates reported donations from ZIP Codes associated with those counties. Click here for the files.