MapLight: Revealing Money's Influence on Politics

摘要

The purpose of MapLight.org is to provide a database which tracks the connection between political donations and their effect on the legislative votes of members of the US Congress. In addition to the US Congress, the database is available for the states of Wisconsin and California and the city of Los Angeles. MapLight's goal is to provide this service for all 50 states. Although it has a steep learning curve, MapLight provides a wealth of information not found elsewhere for free. MapLight.org is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization which was created in 2005. At that time, they focused on California money and politics, later focusing on the effect of contributions on California legislation. In 2007, they began tracking donations to and subsequent votes of US Congress members. The State of Wisconsin was added to MapLight in 2011. On September 5, 2014, MapLight launched a new federal lobbying database which provides information on lobbyists, how much lobbyists spend, who they are hiring and for which issues they are lobbying.