Imagine if you could slap stickers onto politicians – like those on Nascar drivers’ uniforms and race cars – showing who is sponsoring them?
You actually can.
If you learn how to do so – accessing the powers left to you by former generations of open government activists and lawmakers.
[Read: Santana: A DIY Approach to Watchdogging Local Government]
That legacy is in the form of disclosure documents filed at local city halls along with state and federal regulators.
Those documents will tell you exactly who has contributed to local, state and federal elected officials making decisions impacting your quality of life.
They list employers of those contributing as well as key expenses that candidates are spending on their campaigns, including promotional materials, consultants and media buys.
That can often not only tell you who’s behind candidates, but what kinds of campaigns office-seekers are running in terms of consultants and media vs. promotional materials, events and get-out-the-vote efforts.
What Can You Learn From Reading These Forms?
On the most basic level, campaign contribution forms – also known as form 460s in California – will tell you a lot of information about donors, including their full names, contact information along with tidbits like employers.
It can all help paint a picture of what types of interests are backing candidates.
Running financial tallies will also let people understand how much money – aka resources – a particular campaign can count on during specific periods as well as how much money has been raised and spent.
In addition to direct contributions, residents can also check into independent expenditures from industry or special interest groups on behalf of candidates.
Where to Look?
Finding campaign finance documents can sometimes be a challenge but it’s far from impossible.
More and more, local cities and school districts are placing such documents right on their websites and state agencies are also making them easier to find.
In non-election years, officials only have to file two reports per year, but during election years they have to file more often and highlight when larger donations come in.
In addition, 90 days leading up to an election, campaign spending also has to be reported in real time – the window where the most amount of money is typically spent.
In most cities, where your mayors and city council members serve, the local city clerk will hold a lot of campaign finance records as well as independent expenditures on behalf of candidates.
For a county supervisor, the county Registrar of Voters will maintain campaign finance records while the Clerk of the Board will hold onto conflict of interest records for officeholders.
At the state level, the Secretary of State maintains a database of all contributions and campaign spending.
And at the federal level, it’s the Federal Elections Commission.
In addition, the Center for Public Integrity also publishes Open Secrets, which breaks down federal campaign expenses in numerous ways to help show what interests are behind different candidates and elected officials.
The county government and most cities use a software called NetFile to display their reports – which can usually be found on city websites.
To look at the county’s disclosures, click here.
To look at state disclosures, click here.
To look at federal disclosures, click here.
