Article: Campaign Finances Are An Open Book On Web

	Campaign Finances Are An Open Book On Web By T.K. Maloy WASHINGTON, D.C. — It is now easier than ever to find information on campaign contributions at the federal and state level. This is true even though Congress continues its hostility to campaign finance reform, which is the cornerstone of the surprising showing being made in the presidential race by Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ). But newspaper and television reporters, and other researchers, armed only with a computer and modem, can easily find who is throwing money at local candidates and how the candidates are spending it. There had been a dribble of campaign finance info on the Internet for several years, with data posted by the Federal Election Commission and other groups being hard to get electronically and difficult to understand. But that has started to change. Now journalists and the public can get the goods on almost any political candidate and on the people and organizations who are making donations to his campaign. The most up-to-date site The Internet Newsroom found is called FEC Info, and was founded by a former Federal Election Commission aide Tony Raymond, later joined by Kent Cooper, the longtime FEC public information chief. FEC Info is at this address: http://www.tray.com It specializes in getting the campaign data out in a hurry and in undiluted form. In mid-December they already had online the reports filed December 1 with the FEC. The next batch of reports are due to be filed with the FEC by January 31st, and FEC Info pledges to rush to get it online in a hurry. On the FEC Info homepage are clearly labeled links which will bring up campaign finance data for all U.S. House and Senate Candidates and for the presidential race. There are also links to Political Action Committee campaign contributions and a link which allows visitors to plug in a ZIP Code and get a rundown on all contributors living there. The Open Secrets site, which is hosted by the Center for Responsive Politics, is another excellent and comprehensive place for journalists and the public to find out about the political money flow. Its URL is: http://www.opensecrets.org Open Secrets became a powerhouse of campaign information during the 1997–1998 election cycle when it specialized in collecting campaign finance data and making it easily accessible to the press and public. On this site it is easy for a single reporter to surf the Internet and come up with revealing financial information about the local congressional race, almost as soon as the candidate files it with the FEC or state authorities. It is also easy to find out who is giving the money, individuals or special interest Political Action Committees. The candidates own quarterly reports list donors, of course. But at the Open Secrets website you can also get a breakdown by industry, geography and top contributors to Congressional candidates. Open Secrets also provides a home for a limited number of state sites that combine all available campaign finance information about state and federal candidates in an easy to understand format. In late December there was information from Arizona, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Minnesota. More states are promised soon. One of the best new campaign finance sites is Digital Sunlight, an ambitious project of the California Voters Foundation which offers extensive information about campaign finance data available at the state level. They made a survey and found 35 states now offer some kind of campaign finance data on official state websites and 32 states are moving forward with electronic filing programs which candidates may use. Digital Sunlight listed seven states with excellent campaign finance resources, including Illinois, California, Michigan, Virginia, Hawaii, Louisiana and New York. A chart on the site gives a rundown on each state’s progress in offering online campaign finance information. There are also links on the site to nearly a dozen mainline organizations which have campaign finance databases that journalists and the public can tap into. http://www.digitalsunlight.org The Federal Election Commission itself has a website: http://www.fec.gov It has a Citizens Guide to the election law, a section on using FEC Services, an icon which will take you to all the FEC campaign finance databases, a section with special help for candidates and one which provides press releases and media advisories. The FEC online data has always been very complete and very literal. The information you need is there somewhere, but its tough to find. And often it’s part of a huge database which takes forever to download. The Campaign Finance Information Center, sponsored by Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and supported financially by the Joyce Foundation, is well-organized and easy to use. It features a clickable map of the United States which enables visitors to quickly find out what campaign finance data is available at the site about candidates from that state. “We collect state campaign finance data from across the nation, clean it and make it available to journalists,” IRE says in a statement on the site. ttp://www.campaignfinance.org Follow the Money is the name of a campaign finance site sponsored by The National Institute of Money in State Politics. The database at this site provides campaign finance info on specific contributors who gave to candidates in various states. The site is sponsored by the non-partisan National Institute on Money in State Politics, which is based in Helena, Montana. http://www.followthemoney.org