# Lobbex

> Lobbex is a free, open-source lobbying disclosure intelligence platform. It indexes US Senate lobbying filings, FEC campaign finance data, and congressional records to let anyone follow the money, map influence networks, and detect anomalies in federal lobbying.

## Overview

Lobbex processes 50,000+ Senate lobbying filings covering $1.15 billion in reported lobbying income. It tracks 29,235 entities (lobbying firms, clients, lobbyists, government agencies, and policy issues) connected through 230,535 relationships. The platform uses graph analysis (PageRank, betweenness centrality, community detection) and statistical anomaly detection to surface patterns that would be invisible in raw filing data.

Data is sourced from the US Senate LDA electronic filing system, the FEC campaign finance API, and the Congress.gov API. Updated twice weekly via automated pipeline.

## Core Features

- [Overview Dashboard](https://lobbex.com/): Aggregate statistics, anomaly alerts across 6 categories, top spenders, top firms, trend charts, and lobbying cluster analysis
- [Follow the Money](https://lobbex.com/?tab=money): Spending breakdowns by client, lobbying firm, and issue area with filtering
- [Trends](https://lobbex.com/?tab=timeline): Lobbying income and filing volume over time, biggest movers between periods
- [Political Contributions](https://lobbex.com/?tab=contributions): LD-203 campaign contribution disclosures from lobbyists to politicians, 150,410 contributions totaling $388M
- [Issue Explorer](https://lobbex.com/?tab=issues): All 79 lobbying issue areas with connected entities, spending breakdowns, and filing trends
- [Legislation Tracker](https://lobbex.com/?tab=bills): Bills referenced in lobbying filings linked to Congress.gov with sponsor details
- [Revolving Door](https://lobbex.com/?tab=revolving-door): 2,974 former government officials now registered as lobbyists, tracked by agency of origin
- [Foreign Influence](https://lobbex.com/?tab=foreign): 297 clients with disclosed foreign entity ties and their lobbying spending
- [Power Brokers](https://lobbex.com/?tab=influence): Most connected entities ranked by influence score, degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and PageRank
- [Geographic View](https://lobbex.com/?tab=geo): Lobbying activity mapped by US state with congressional member overlays
- [Network Graph](https://lobbex.com/?tab=graph): Interactive force-directed entity relationship graph with path finder, community coloring, and type filters
- [Entity Comparison](https://lobbex.com/?tab=compare): Side-by-side comparison of any two lobbying entities with radar charts
- [Search](https://lobbex.com/?tab=search): Fuzzy search across all 29,235 entities with type filtering and CSV export

## Anomaly Detection

Lobbex runs 6 categories of anomaly detection on every data refresh:

- **Spending outliers**: Entities with disproportionately high lobbying expenditures identified via IQR + log-z-score methods
- **Temporal anomalies**: Spending spikes (2x+ quarter-over-quarter), prolonged silence, and new market entrants
- **Concentration risk**: Entities with unusually concentrated lobbying on single issues or through single firms
- **Network anomalies**: Disproportionate hubs (high degree centrality) and bridge nodes (high betweenness) in the influence graph
- **Foreign influence flags**: Foreign-linked clients with outsized spending relative to domestic peers
- **Revolving door clusters**: Groups of former officials from the same agency now lobbying on related issues

## Data Sources

- **US Senate LDA** (lda.senate.gov): LD-1 registrations, LD-2 activity reports, LD-203 contribution reports. 50,000 filings covering 2023-2025.
- **FEC API** (api.open.fec.gov): Campaign finance committee data, PAC receipts and disbursements.
- **Congress.gov API** (api.congress.gov): Bill details, sponsors, status. Congressional member data by state and chamber.

## Key Statistics

- Total filings: 50,000
- Total reported lobbying income: $1,151,607,758
- Unique lobbyists: 9,619
- Unique clients: 16,187
- Unique lobbying firms: 3,975
- Government entities tracked: 202
- Policy issue areas: 79
- Graph nodes: 29,235
- Graph edges: 230,535
- Political contributions tracked: 150,410 ($388M total)
- Revolving door lobbyists: 2,974
- Foreign-linked clients: 297
- Community modularity score: 0.28

## Top Lobbying Firms by Revenue

1. Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP: $59.5M
2. Holland & Knight LLP: $39.2M
3. Cornerstone Government Affairs: $28.6M
4. Invariant LLC: $25.6M
5. Forbes-Tate: $25.1M

## Top Lobbying Issues by Filing Volume

1. Budget/Appropriations: 11,578 filings ($261M)
2. Health Issues: 7,604 filings ($207M)
3. Taxation/Internal Revenue Code: 5,699 filings ($172M)
4. Defense: 5,472 filings ($138M)
5. Transportation: 3,967 filings ($86M)

## Technology

Static single-page application. Frontend: Vite, Tailwind CSS, Chart.js, Cytoscape.js, Fuse.js. Backend pipeline: Python, NetworkX (graph analysis), automated via GitHub Actions. Deployed on Vercel. All data served as pre-exported static JSON.

## Public REST API

Lobbex exposes a public REST API at `https://lobbex.com/api/v1/`. All endpoints return JSON with a standard envelope (`data` + `meta`). Paginated endpoints accept `page`, `per_page` (max 200), `sort` (prefix `-` for descending), and `format=csv`. Rate limit: 100 req/hour without API key, 1,000 with key (pass via `X-API-Key` header).

- **Interactive docs**: https://lobbex.com/docs/
- **OpenAPI 3.0 spec**: https://lobbex.com/api/openapi
- **Health check**: `GET /api/health`

### Endpoints

- `GET /api/v1/stats` - Dashboard aggregates, top entities, community data
- `GET /api/v1/entities?q=&type=&state=&sort=` - Search/list all 29,235 entities (paginated)
- `GET /api/v1/entities?id={id}&include=edges` - Single entity detail with optional graph connections
- `GET /api/v1/anomalies?category=&severity=&min_score=` - Detected anomalies across 6 categories
- `GET /api/v1/filings?registrant=&client=&year=&issue=` - 50,000 lobbying filing records (paginated)
- `GET /api/v1/contributions?lobbyist=&payee=&min_amount=` - Political contribution records (paginated)
- `GET /api/v1/bills?q=` - Legislation referenced in lobbying filings
- `GET /api/v1/timeline?entity=&issue=` - Temporal trends and movers
- `GET /api/v1/geo` - All states overview
- `GET /api/v1/geo?state={code}` - Single state detail with congressional delegation
- `GET /api/v1/stats?resource=insights` - Cross-cutting analytical patterns
- `GET /api/v1/graph?id={id}&depth=1` - Entity's network neighbors (depth 1 or 2)

### Raw Data Files

Static JSON files are also available directly:

- [Stats](https://lobbex.com/data/stats.json) | [Graph](https://lobbex.com/data/graph_data.json) | [Anomalies](https://lobbex.com/data/anomalies.json) | [Entities](https://lobbex.com/data/search_index.json) | [Filings](https://lobbex.com/data/filings_summary.json) | [Contributions](https://lobbex.com/data/contributions_summary.json) | [Bills](https://lobbex.com/data/bills.json) | [Timeline](https://lobbex.com/data/timeline.json) | [Geo](https://lobbex.com/data/geo.json) | [Insights](https://lobbex.com/data/insights.json)

## Contact

- Website: https://lobbex.com
- Source: https://github.com/0xhackerfren/Lobbex