Recorded webinar on September 12, 2013, for INN members on state PAC data and other political influence tools.
The first part of the training introduced Sunlight’s campaign finance tool, Influence Explorer, which includes campaign finance data, both on a federal and state level. The training will also include a look at other state based legislative tools. The second part took participants through how we used the data digitized by the National Institute for Money and State Politics for stories and showed INN members how they can effectively use this data in their reporting.
Background on state PAC data:
Earlier this year National Institute for Money and State Politics digitized records tracking donors to Political Action Committee for 28 states for the first time. Sunlight is partnering with them to analyze this data and share it with organizations across the country. These records will trace back the money that went from individuals, corporate PACs and labor unions to state level election campaigns in the 2012 races. Sunlight’s focus will be on aggregate national data analysis with partners applying their expertise for local reporting.