OpenSecrets

OpenSecrets
Name	OpenSecrets
Type	Nonprofit research organization
Founded	1983
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Mission	Track money in politics and its effect on elections and public policy

OpenSecrets is a nonprofit research organization that tracks campaign finance, lobbying, and political influence in the United States. It compiles, analyzes, and publishes data on contributions to candidates, political committees, lobbyists, and industry groups, aiming to inform journalists, scholars, and citizens. Operated with a team of analysts, editors, and developers, it aggregates filings from federal agencies and produces searchable databases and reports used across media, academia, and advocacy.

Overview

OpenSecrets collects data from the Federal Election Commission, Senate and House of Representatives disclosure reports, filings submitted to the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt organizations, and reports to the Lobbying Disclosure Act databases. Its outputs include profiles of public figures such as Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and Kamala Harris, as well as corporate actors like Amazon (company), Walmart, ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, and Chevron Corporation. The organization’s tools are frequently cited alongside analysis from institutions like the Brookings Institution, Pew Research Center, Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), ProPublica, and the Sunlight Foundation.

History

Founded in the early 1980s amid rising interest in campaign finance reform, the organization built on transparency movements that followed events such as the Watergate scandal and legislation like the Federal Election Campaign Act. Over time it expanded coverage through partnerships with newsrooms including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and broadcasters such as NPR and the BBC. Major technological shifts prompted collaboration with tech projects and scholars from Harvard University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University to improve data scraping and visualization. The organization’s work intersected with major political moments involving actors like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, John McCain, and Sarah Palin.

Data and Methodology

OpenSecrets ingests structured data from agencies including the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service, and complements those with state-level filings such as those held by the California Secretary of State, New York State Board of Elections, and Texas Ethics Commission. It standardizes donor and recipient names, disambiguates entries for entities like Citigroup, AT&T, Pfizer, Boeing, and Microsoft, and maps contributions to industries identified in filings, referencing classifications used by Standard & Poor's and North American Industry Classification System. Scholars from Georgetown University, Yale University, Princeton University, University of Chicago, and Duke University have used OpenSecrets data for studies on campaign finance, political networks, and regulatory capture. Methodological discussions have engaged legal scholars from institutions like Harvard Law School and Columbia Law School about disclosure thresholds and anonymized data handling.

Major Projects and Tools

Key online tools include candidate finance profiles, lobbying trackers, and sector summaries used during elections with high-profile contests such as the 2020 United States presidential election and 2016 United States presidential election. Interactive tools have been paired with investigative projects by newsrooms like ProPublica and The New York Times for coverage of influencers including Sheldon Adelson, George Soros, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, and Michael Bloomberg. Other initiatives have produced datasets on Super PACs linked to figures such as Americans for Prosperity and committees related to Priorities USA, Club for Growth, American Crossroads, and Restore Our Future. Technical collaborations involved platforms and projects from GitHub, Mozilla Foundation, Tableau Software, Google, and Amazon Web Services.

Impact and Reception

Reports and databases have been cited in investigations into the activities of corporations like Philip Morris International, Johnson & Johnson, and BlackRock, as well as public figures including Rod Blagojevich, Tom DeLay, Dianne Feinstein, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Lindsey Graham. Academic citations appear in journals published by presses such as Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, and in working papers from think tanks including the American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, Center for American Progress, Urban Institute, and RAND Corporation. Journalists from outlets like Politico, Slate, The Atlantic, Bloomberg News, and Reuters regularly use OpenSecrets material for reporting on elections, ethics, and campaign-finance debates.

Funding and Governance

OpenSecrets operates under a nonprofit structure, with funding sources that have included private foundations like the Ford Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Luminate Group, as well as philanthropic support tied to donors such as Arnold Ventures and family foundations associated with figures like Warren Buffett. Its board and advisory panels have included academics and journalists connected to institutions such as American University, Georgetown University, New York University, George Washington University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Audit and compliance matters reference standards from entities like the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Legal Issues and Controversies

The organization’s reliance on federal disclosures has led to disputes around interpretation of filings tied to major actors including Koch Industries, Liberty Media Corporation, Time Warner, News Corporation, and hedge funds associated with Steve Cohen and Ray Dalio. Controversies have centered on accuracy in name matching for donors, handling of dark-money groups like those formed under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, and the limits of FOIA requests to offices such as the Federal Election Commission and state election boards. Legal scholars from Georgetown University Law Center, Stanford Law School, and Yale Law School have debated the balance between data transparency and privacy, citing cases and statutes including rulings from the United States Supreme Court.

Category:Nonprofit organizations based in Washington, D.C.