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Hey folks,

First time blogging, so be kind.

Let me answer just a few questions that you have posted here, in order of importance:

First, the data compiled by the Institute is simply the donor information filed by the 16,000+/- candidates/committees each election cycle with state disclosure agencies. It’s comprehensive, meaning all parties including third-party candidates, winners and losers. You can verify our information by going to state agencies and seeing what candidates file there. We show you which reports we have, which we don’t yet and where they are in our process.

Our data has been peer reviewed many times. Check out the amazing work being done with our data by Michael Malbin at the Campaign Finance Institute. (For those of you with partisan inclinations, check out Michael’s background. I consider Michael a de facto board member; he declined my offer to sit on the board because he saw a conflict in using our data and overseeing our work. He has attended three of my board meetings as a ‘national advisor.’ Read about those on our site under the About Us.) Peers have found our data falls within a margin of error of +/- 5 percent, with our data usually being more accurate than that offered by the agencies themselves, because we accumulate things like “small donors” reported lump sum, loans and loan repayments, things like that, in the same place. If you look at C&E reports in all 50 states, you’ll see that information is spread all over the place in the forms.

Our database for all 50 states dates to the 2000 election cycle. In Washington state, it dates to the 1990 election cycle; we’re just now processing the 2008 reports. They should be up in a matter of days if the aren’t already.

You’ll see some states on the map that are white. That means we either don’t have the data yet — remember we’re working with state agencies in all 50 states, which have 50 different reporting periods, 50 different forms, 50 different disclosure laws, etc. We have six people acquiring these reports. They are dedicated individuals who have no agenda other than providing the public with public information that has been locked away for too long.

We use a methodology developed by Larry Makinson when he first began this work more than 20 years ago as a reporter in Alaska. Our coding system, based on the Commerce Department’s Standard Industry Code, is close to theirs, so if you want to see what the Banking industry is giving at the federal level, you can look at Banking at opensecrets.org, and at Banking at followthemoney.org and be confident the names and codes are parallel.

Besides the donor data for candidates, you’ll notice we also collect donors to the major state party committees as well as ballot measure committees. We’ve just begun looking at the Independent Expenditures; reporting is a nightmare, but we’ll crack it with time.

You’ll also notice that we’re moving our data out to other groups using widgets and APIs. On our site, check out the Committee Analysis Tool, which is an API that uses the committee assignments compiled by Project Vote Smart. You can look at committees and filter our data by assignment and industry, to see which insurance companies, for example, gave to Insurance Committee members in Illinois. We’ll be doing more of this type of aggregation to and mashing as we get access to other sources of data.

Two of our newest tools are LobbyistLink, which is a first-its-kind database of registered lobbyists in the states with their firms and clients, which we correlate with campaign donations, and a GIS mapping project. The former will be on-line shortly; the latter will also as soon as we get some geocoding problems worked out. (Too inaccurate for our tastes.)

What else?

Ah ha. Board members. Yeah, they have backgrounds. They’ve done impressive stuff, whether you agree with that or not. My annual board retreat, where we invite national advisors to help us develop our agenda, has been attended by liberal and conservative alike.

Like I said before, the data is verifiable. Let me say that again, the data is verifiable with the state agencies, many of whom link to our site. (We’ve actually worked with state agencies debugging their new systems and advising them on what the public wants from their disclosure systems. You’re welcome.)

I love this one: Anti-gun bias. Don’t know where that comes from. We live in Montana, folks. Two women on my staff are avid hunters, as am I (Got an A and B tag for deer this season as well as an Elk tag and upland bird. Fish, too. Last year I made a hundred pounds of sausage from my takings.) One was a competitive shooter at the national.

I could go on, but I think I hit my blogging limit. More coffee required.

Let me just say that in our quest for what we’ve dubbed “Full Circle Transparency” — comprehensive information on our electoral and public policy systems, from candidate conflict of interest statements, to political donors, lobbyists and clients, to committee assignments, legislative tracking and ultimately, contract and subsidy information — we’ve achieved a lot. We have plans to do much more.

I might suggest that before you pass judgment on us, you click on the safety of that gun and spend more than a few minutes actually looking at our reports and data. (My scope time hunting is way more than my shooting time....)If the RNC and the DNC both use our data — and they do, my IP analysis shows — then we’re doing something right.

Have a nice morning, folks. And keep making noise; democracy ain’t pretty, it’s a debate that doesn’t end.

You can direct questions to me at edwinb at statemoney dot org. My phone is 406 449 2480.

Edwin Bender (not the catchiest screen name, I know, but transparent and accurate.)