Special Interest Groups

Interested in researching connections between contributions by special interest groups, legislators, and legislation/bills? Check out MAPLight.org where you can find supporters and opponents of specific bills, top contributors to individual legislators, and top recipients of special interest contributions. Also check out their contributing site, OpenSecrets.org from the Center for Responsive Politics.

If you want to go straight to the source, take a look at these Federal disclosure databases:
For Campaign Finance data, the FEC's Campaign Finance Disclosure Database
For information on lobbyists, the US Senate's Lobbying Disclosure Act Database

Interested in lobbying and campaign contributions in the California state political arena? MAPLight.org also has information for the California state level. You can also look at the California Secretary of State's Cal-Access which offers information on campaign finance, of both elected officials and propositions/ballot measures, and California lobbyists.

And if you're researching independent expenditures in California campaigns, be sure to read the report Independent Expenditures: The Giant Gorilla in Campaign Finance Reform from the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

For further resources, see the Politics page on the UCSC Government Publications & Law website.