# Lobbex

> Lobbex is a free, open-source lobbying disclosure intelligence platform that indexes US Senate lobbying filings, FEC campaign finance data, and congressional records. It lets journalists, researchers, and the public follow the money, map influence networks, and detect anomalies in federal lobbying. All data is sourced from public government databases and updated twice weekly.

## Table of Contents

- [Overview Dashboard](https://lobbex.com/)
- [Follow the Money](https://lobbex.com/?tab=money)
- [Trends](https://lobbex.com/?tab=timeline)
- [Political Contributions](https://lobbex.com/?tab=contributions)
- [Issue Explorer](https://lobbex.com/?tab=issues)
- [Legislation Tracker](https://lobbex.com/?tab=bills)
- [Revolving Door](https://lobbex.com/?tab=revolving-door)
- [Foreign Influence](https://lobbex.com/?tab=foreign)
- [Power Brokers](https://lobbex.com/?tab=influence)
- [Geographic View](https://lobbex.com/?tab=geo)
- [Network Graph](https://lobbex.com/?tab=graph)
- [Entity Comparison](https://lobbex.com/?tab=compare)
- [Search](https://lobbex.com/?tab=search)
- [Data Sources & Methodology](#data-sources--methodology)
- [Key Statistics](#key-statistics)
- [Anomaly Detection](#anomaly-detection)

---

# Overview Dashboard

The Overview Dashboard (https://lobbex.com/) provides a high-level view of the US lobbying landscape. It displays:

**Aggregate Statistics**
- Total filings indexed: 50,000
- Total reported lobbying income: $1,151,607,758
- Unique lobbying firms (registrants): 3,975
- Unique clients: 16,187
- Unique lobbyists: 9,619
- Government entities tracked: 202

**Anomalies & Alerts**
The dashboard highlights flagged anomalies across 6 detection categories: spending outliers, temporal anomalies, concentration risk, network anomalies, foreign influence, and revolving door clusters. Up to 200 anomalies are surfaced per refresh, scored 0-100 by severity, money involved, and number of triggers.

**Top Spenders (Clients)**
The top lobbying clients by reported spending:
1. CHRO Association (fka HR Policy Association): $2,970,000
2. American Israel Public Affairs Committee: $2,355,587
3. Oracle Corporation: $1,970,000
4. Comcast Corporation: $1,894,000
5. Victims of Terrorism - East Africa: $1,600,000
6. PhRMA: $1,580,000
7. Illumina, Inc.: $1,548,750
8. Expansion Funding Partners, LLC: $1,475,000
9. General Dynamics: $1,470,000
10. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA): $1,390,000

**Top Earning Lobbying Firms**
1. Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP: $59,520,000
2. Holland & Knight LLP: $39,210,000
3. Cornerstone Government Affairs, Inc.: $28,574,500
4. Invariant LLC: $25,620,000
5. Forbes-Tate: $25,060,000
6. Tiber Creek Group: $24,190,000
7. Squire Patton Boggs: $22,080,000
8. Cassidy & Associates, Inc.: $20,650,000
9. Capitol Counsel LLC: $17,210,000
10. Mehlman Consulting, Inc.: $15,820,000

**Most Active Issue Areas (by filing count)**
1. Budget/Appropriations: 11,578 filings
2. Health Issues: 7,604 filings
3. Taxation/Internal Revenue Code: 5,699 filings
4. Defense: 5,472 filings
5. Transportation: 3,967 filings
6. Energy/Nuclear: 3,544 filings
7. Medicare/Medicaid: 3,463 filings
8. Trade (domestic/foreign): 2,785 filings
9. Agriculture: 2,730 filings
10. Environment/Superfund: 2,588 filings

**Issue Areas by Money**
1. Budget/Appropriations: $261,205,298
2. Health Issues: $207,129,005
3. Taxation/Internal Revenue Code: $171,659,455
4. Defense: $138,243,598
5. Medicare/Medicaid: $101,683,565
6. Energy/Nuclear: $99,864,911
7. Transportation: $86,039,432
8. Trade (domestic/foreign): $78,213,132
9. Financial Institutions/Investments/Securities: $70,782,512
10. Environment/Superfund: $61,018,760

**Top Lobbying Clusters**
Community detection (greedy modularity, modularity score = 0.28) identifies distinct lobbying clusters:
- Cluster 1 (18,567 entities, $1.76B): General policy cluster spanning budget, tax, health, transportation, and defense
- Cluster 7 (1,298 entities, $66.4M): Healthcare-focused cluster centered on Medicare/Medicaid
- Cluster 9 (695 entities, $28.6M): Transportation and infrastructure cluster
- Cluster 20 (384 entities, $15.1M): Financial services and retirement policy cluster
- Cluster 10 (370 entities, $18.8M): Natural resources and environment cluster

---

# Follow the Money

The Follow the Money view (https://lobbex.com/?tab=money) shows detailed spending breakdowns across the lobbying ecosystem.

**What it shows:**
- Top spending clients ranked by reported lobbying expenditures
- Top earning lobbying firms ranked by reported income
- Spending by issue area (bar chart and doughnut chart)
- Filterable by specific issue area

**How to interpret:**
Under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, clients report how much they spend on lobbying, and lobbying firms (registrants) report how much income they receive. The "Follow the Money" view aggregates these figures from LD-2 activity reports filed quarterly with the US Senate.

Spending data is extracted from the `income` and `expenses` fields of each filing. A single client may have multiple filings across different firms and quarters.

---

# Trends

The Trends view (https://lobbex.com/?tab=timeline) tracks how lobbying activity changes over time.

**Charts:**
- Lobbying income over time (line chart by filing period)
- Filing count over time (bar chart)
- Unique entities per period
- Biggest movers: entities with the largest quarter-over-quarter spending changes

**Filing periods covered:** Quarterly filings for 2023 (Q1-Q4), with ongoing coverage of 2024 and 2025 filings as they are published.

---

# Political Contributions

The Political Contributions view (https://lobbex.com/?tab=contributions) displays LD-203 disclosures.

**What are LD-203 filings?**
The Lobbying Disclosure Act requires registered lobbyists to file semi-annual reports (LD-203) disclosing their political contributions. These include FECA-reportable contributions (to candidates and PACs), honorary expenses, meeting expenses, and payments to presidential libraries or inaugural committees.

**Key statistics:**
- Total contributions tracked: 150,410
- Total contribution amount: $388,111,421
- Unique recipients: 18,280
- Unique contributing lobbyists: 4,938

**Contribution types:**
- FECA contributions: 148,545
- PAC contributions: 1,109
- Honorary expenses: 600
- Meeting expenses: 122
- Presidential inaugural committee: 19
- Presidential library expenses: 15

**Top recipients of lobbyist contributions:**
1. National Republican Senatorial Committee: $6,989,513
2. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee: $6,702,810
3. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: $5,776,217
4. National Republican Congressional Committee: $5,638,181
5. Donald Trump and J.D. Vance: $5,000,000
6. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute: $3,750,002
7. Jason Smith: $1,684,800
8. Senate Majority PAC: $1,551,823
9. Mike Johnson: $1,458,046
10. Brett Guthrie: $1,372,476

**Top contributing firms/organizations:**
1. Service Employees International Union: $10,742,250
2. JBS USA Food Company Holdings: $5,114,500
3. The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers: $4,792,800
4. National Air Traffic Controllers Association: $4,431,400
5. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees: $4,041,080

---

# Issue Explorer

The Issue Explorer (https://lobbex.com/?tab=issues) lets users browse all 79 lobbying issue areas defined by the Senate Office of Public Records.

**What it shows for each issue:**
- Total spending associated with the issue
- Number of filings mentioning the issue
- Top spenders within the issue
- Entity type breakdown (firms, clients, lobbyists)
- Filing trend over time
- Connected entities (registrants, clients, lobbyists, government bodies)
- Activity descriptions from filings

**Complete list of issue areas (79 total):**
Budget/Appropriations, Health Issues, Taxation/Internal Revenue Code, Defense, Transportation, Energy/Nuclear, Medicare/Medicaid, Trade (domestic/foreign), Agriculture, Environment/Superfund, Education, Financial Institutions/Investments/Securities, Labor Issues/Antitrust/Workplace, Natural Resources, Government Issues, Science/Technology, Telecommunications, Homeland Security, Banking, Aviation/Airlines/Airports, Manufacturing, Housing, Consumer Issues/Safety/Products, Immigration, Veterans, and 54 more.

---

# Legislation Tracker

The Legislation Tracker (https://lobbex.com/?tab=bills) identifies bills referenced in lobbying activity descriptions.

**How it works:**
Lobbex parses the free-text activity descriptions in LD-2 filings to extract bill references (e.g., "H.R. 1234", "S. 567", "P.L. 118-42"). These are then matched against the Congress.gov API to retrieve bill title, sponsor, status, and latest action.

**What it shows:**
- Bill number and title
- Sponsor and party
- Current status and latest action
- Number of lobbying filings referencing the bill
- Total spending by entities lobbying on the bill

---

# Revolving Door

The Revolving Door view (https://lobbex.com/?tab=revolving-door) tracks former government officials who are now registered lobbyists.

**What is the revolving door?**
The "revolving door" refers to the movement of personnel between government positions and private-sector lobbying roles. LD-2 filings require lobbyists to disclose if they previously held "covered positions" in the executive or legislative branches within 20 years.

**Key statistics:**
- Revolving door lobbyists identified: 2,974 (out of 9,619 total lobbyists)
- That means 30.9% of registered lobbyists have prior government experience

**Top government agencies of origin:**
1. Government Relations: 18 lobbyists
2. U.S. House of Representatives: 17 lobbyists
3. Senate Finance Committee: 17 lobbyists
4. Legislative Assistant (various offices): 15 lobbyists
5. House Financial Services Committee: 14 lobbyists
6. House of Representatives (general): 12 lobbyists
7. Senate Judiciary Committee: 10 lobbyists
8. House Republican Conference: 9 lobbyists
9. House Appropriations Committee: 9 lobbyists
10. White House: 8 lobbyists

**What they lobby on:**
Former government officials tend to lobby on the same issues they handled in government. For example:
- Former House Financial Services Committee staff disproportionately lobby on Banking, Financial Institutions, Taxation, and Insurance
- Former USDA officials lobby on Agriculture, Trade, and Food Industry issues
- Former defense committee staff lobby on Defense and Budget/Appropriations

---

# Foreign Influence

The Foreign Influence view (https://lobbex.com/?tab=foreign) highlights lobbying activities with foreign ties.

**What it tracks:**
Under the LDA, lobbying firms must disclose whether their clients have foreign entity affiliations. This view aggregates all clients who reported foreign entity ties and shows their lobbying spending, issue focus, and the specific foreign entities disclosed.

**Key statistics:**
- Foreign-linked clients: 297 (out of 16,187 total clients)
- Total spending by foreign-linked clients: $32,538,700
- Average spending per foreign-linked client: $109,558
- Average spending per domestic client: $74,278

**Top foreign-linked entities by spending:**
1. Global Foundries (USA): $2,970,000
2. McCain Foods (Canada): $2,970,000
3. SK Hynix Inc. (South Korea): $1,230,000
4. DJI Europe B.V. (Netherlands): $980,000
5. iFlight Technology Company Limited (China): $980,000

**Issues most lobbied by foreign-linked entities:**
1. Trade (domestic/foreign): 64 filings
2. Energy/Nuclear: 58 filings
3. Defense: 56 filings
4. Taxation/Internal Revenue Code: 50 filings
5. Budget/Appropriations: 47 filings

---

# Power Brokers

The Power Brokers view (https://lobbex.com/?tab=influence) ranks entities by network analysis metrics.

**Metrics computed:**
- **Influence Score**: Composite metric (0-100) combining centrality, money flow, and filing activity. Structural nodes (broad issue categories, government entities) are capped at 10% to avoid dominating rankings.
- **Degree Centrality**: Fraction of all entities an entity is directly connected to. High degree = many direct relationships.
- **Betweenness Centrality**: How often an entity lies on the shortest path between other entities. High betweenness = information broker or gatekeeper. Computed using inverse edge weight as distance (stronger relationships = shorter paths).
- **PageRank**: Recursive importance score based on the importance of connected entities, analogous to Google's original algorithm.

**Visualizations:**
- Influence Landscape scatter plot: X = filing count, Y = influence score, bubble size = money
- Hubs vs Bridges scatter plot: X = degree centrality, Y = betweenness centrality. Top-right entities are powerful well-connected hubs. Top-left entities are information bottlenecks bridging otherwise disconnected clusters.
- Ranked table with all metrics, sortable and filterable by entity type
- CSV export of full power broker rankings

---

# Geographic View

The Geographic View (https://lobbex.com/?tab=geo) maps lobbying activity by US state.

**What it shows:**
- Interactive choropleth map colored by selected metric (spending, income, filing count, client count, firm count)
- State rankings table
- State detail panel with top entities, congressional delegation, and activity breakdown
- Congressional members by state with party affiliation

---

# Network Graph

The Network Graph (https://lobbex.com/?tab=graph) is an interactive force-directed visualization of the entity relationship graph.

**Graph structure:**
- 29,235 nodes representing lobbying firms, clients, lobbyists, issue areas, and government entities
- 230,535 edges representing co-filing relationships (weighted by number of shared filings)
- Nodes sized by influence score
- Nodes colored by entity type or community membership

**Interactive features:**
- Search and highlight specific entities
- Filter by entity type, issue area, and minimum filing count
- Multiple layout algorithms (concentric, force-directed, circle, grid)
- Color by type or by community
- Path Finder: discover the shortest connection path between any two entities
- Click any node to see its connections and details

---

# Entity Comparison

The Entity Comparison view (https://lobbex.com/?tab=compare) provides side-by-side analysis of any two entities.

**Comparison includes:**
- Key metrics (spending, income, filings, connections, influence score)
- Bar chart metric comparison
- Multi-dimension radar chart (spending, degree centrality, betweenness, PageRank, filing count)
- Shared connections between the two entities

---

# Search

The Search view (https://lobbex.com/?tab=search) provides fuzzy text search across all 29,235 entities.

**Features:**
- Real-time fuzzy matching powered by Fuse.js
- Filter by entity type (registrant, client, lobbyist, issue, government entity)
- Results show entity name, type, money flow, filing count, and influence score
- Click any result to open the entity detail panel
- CSV export of search results

---

# Data Sources & Methodology

## Senate LDA (Primary Source)
- **URL**: https://lda.senate.gov/filings/public/filing/search/
- **What**: All lobbying disclosure filings required by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (2 U.S.C. 1601-1614)
- **Filing types**: LD-1 (registration), LD-2 (quarterly activity report), LD-203 (semi-annual contribution report)
- **Coverage**: 50,000 filings from 2023-2025
- **Update frequency**: Twice weekly (Monday and Thursday 6 AM UTC)

## FEC API
- **URL**: https://api.open.fec.gov/
- **What**: Federal Election Commission campaign finance data
- **Used for**: PAC committee data, receipts, disbursements for entities that also appear in lobbying filings
- **Coverage**: Matched against lobbying registrants and clients

## Congress.gov API
- **URL**: https://api.congress.gov/
- **What**: Congressional bill data and member information
- **Used for**: Enriching bill references extracted from lobbying activity descriptions; state-level congressional delegation data for the geographic view

## Data Pipeline
The Lobbex data pipeline is a Python-based system that:
1. Fetches raw filing data from the Senate LDA API (paginated, period-split to maximize coverage)
2. Fetches supplementary data from FEC and Congress.gov APIs
3. Builds an entity relationship graph using NetworkX
4. Computes centrality metrics (degree, betweenness, PageRank)
5. Runs community detection on a non-structural subgraph (greedy modularity)
6. Runs anomaly detection across 6 categories
7. Exports optimized static JSON files for the frontend

## Entity Deduplication
Names are normalized by stripping suffixes (Inc., LLC, Corp., LLP, etc.), converting to uppercase, and merging known aliases. Lobbyist IDs combine first name, last name, and covered position. Government entities are normalized to canonical forms.

## Anomaly Detection Methodology
- **Spending outliers**: IQR fence + log-transformed z-score on entity spending distributions
- **Temporal anomalies**: 2x+ quarter-over-quarter spending changes, 2+ quarters of silence, new entrant detection
- **Concentration**: Single-issue or single-firm dependency ratios
- **Network**: Betweenness and degree centrality outliers (z-score > 2.5)
- **Foreign influence**: Foreign-linked clients spending above the 75th percentile of all clients
- **Revolving door**: Clusters of 3+ former officials from the same agency lobbying related issues

Each anomaly receives a score (0-100) based on money involved (up to 50 points from dollar amount), severity (30 for high, 15 for medium), and number of reasons (up to 20 points). Results are capped per category to ensure diversity.

---

# Key Statistics

| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| Total filings | 50,000 |
| Senate filings | 50,000 |
| Total income | $1,151,607,758 |
| Total expenses | $861,636,227 |
| Unique lobbyists | 9,619 |
| Unique clients | 16,187 |
| Unique registrants (firms) | 3,975 |
| Government entities | 202 |
| Issue areas | 79 |
| Graph nodes | 29,235 |
| Graph edges | 230,535 |
| Political contributions | 150,410 |
| Contribution total | $388,111,421 |
| Unique recipients | 18,280 |
| Contributing lobbyists | 4,938 |
| Revolving door lobbyists | 2,974 |
| Foreign-linked clients | 297 |
| Community modularity | 0.28 |
| Data sources | Senate LDA, Congress.gov, FEC |

---

# Public REST API

Lobbex provides a public REST API at `https://lobbex.com/api/v1/`.

- **Interactive docs**: https://lobbex.com/docs/
- **OpenAPI 3.0 spec**: https://lobbex.com/api/openapi
- **Rate limits**: 100 req/hour (anonymous), 1,000 req/hour (with API key via X-API-Key header)
- **Response format**: JSON (default) or CSV (via `?format=csv` on list endpoints)

Key endpoints: `/api/v1/stats`, `/api/v1/stats?resource=insights`, `/api/v1/entities`, `/api/v1/entities?id=...`, `/api/v1/anomalies`, `/api/v1/filings`, `/api/v1/contributions`, `/api/v1/bills`, `/api/v1/timeline`, `/api/v1/geo`, `/api/v1/geo?state=...`, `/api/v1/graph?id=...`, `/api/health`.

All list endpoints support `page`, `per_page` (max 200), and `sort` (prefix `-` for descending).

---

# Contact & Source Code

- **Website**: https://lobbex.com
- **Source code**: https://github.com/0xhackerfren/Lobbex
- **Data update schedule**: Twice weekly (Monday and Thursday, 6 AM UTC)
- **License**: Open source