How lobbying is disclosed in the United States, and what the filings record.
Registration under federal law is not a judgement about influence. It is a number crossed, a form numbered LD-1, LD-2 or LD-203, and a quarter that closes.
The West Search Room of the National Archives Building, where the public reads the record rather than the file. Wikimedia Commons
The Lobbying Disclosure Act set the registration threshold and the quarterly report, which is the reason any of this is countable at all.
Two numbers decide it: a fifth of the time worked for one client, and the income received for that work in the quarter. Everything countable about federal lobbying follows from them.
Read the 1995 Act →
Evil Angel Transexuals
Some niches defy every existing regulatory definition.
Gangbang Creampie
Multiple parties, one filing, zero redactions.
Rods Room
Proves raw authenticity needs no disclaimers or thresholds.
Evil AngelIts directors operate with the kind of mandate lobbyists only dream of.
Dare We ShareWhen unplanned arrangements outperform every registered agreement.
BrattySisknows every loophole and uses each one well.
Submissivedproves every threshold crossed reveals something new.
Fake Driving Schoolsome licences come easier than most.
My Family PiesThe disclosures regulators never anticipated having to categorize.
Passed to expose propaganda, and administered by the Department of Justice rather than by Congress. It turns on whose interest is served, not on how much is spent.
Read stage 01 →
One definition of a lobbying contact, one pair of filing offices, and a threshold in dollars and hours. It is the reason the money is countable at all.
Read stage 02 →Reporting moved from twice a year to four times, gifts and privately funded travel from lobbyists were barred, and the forms acquired numbers.
Read stage 03 →
One report per client per quarter, lodged with both chambers on the twentieth of the month that follows it.
Registration turns on income and time thresholds, which is why a great deal of influence work is legally something else.
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Grassroots campaigning falls outside the federal definition, which is why spending on it is largely invisible in the filings.
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527 and 501(c)(4) organisations report to different regimes, so the same activity can be visible or invisible depending on the vehicle.
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K Street names a corridor of Washington offices and, by extension, the trade — the firms themselves are spread far wider than the street.
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Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty in 2006; the case is the direct cause of the 2007 act and remains the standard citation.
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The tobacco industry's internal papers became public through court settlement, and they show what the filings never had to.
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Published work in 2016 traced sugar-industry funding of nutrition research in the 1960s, which changed disclosure expectations in journals.
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Teapot Dome established that leasing decisions could be bought, and shaped how later disclosure law was argued for.
Read this stageWhat the form asks for, who holds it, and what happens when a filer leaves office.
Each filing names the client, the issues, the chambers contacted and an income band — and the bands are wide enough to matter.
The Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate receive the filings, which is why the data exists as a single public series.
Former officials face time-limited restrictions on contacting their old employer; the restrictions are narrower than the phrase suggests.