If you're a programmer and want to do something politically powerful, write a tool that takes FEC bulk data and dereferences the chains of PAC-to-PAC donations used to obfuscate giving, so we can see clearly which corporations donated to which candidate.
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Each PAC and candidate committee has a unique identifier in FEC records. Candidate committees are allowed to donate to one another (within limits) so there is no guarantee that it's an acyclic graph. The world being full of smart people, it's possible this tool exists already
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Replying to @Pinboard
I've been working with FEC data for 20 years and I'm not sure the problem you're trying to solve here. The data already has this information. Can you say more?
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Replying to @derekwillis
My own interest is tracing dollars given by a specific corporate PAC to the candidate pockets they end up in. Being able to say that Google PAC funds Steve King (via Eye of the Tiger PAC) is useful to me, but I had to follow the chain by hand
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Replying to @Pinboard
Ok, I see. There's no definitive way in the data to do that, because donations aren't tracked in such a way that it refers to specific funds in a three-entity relationship.
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Replying to @derekwillis
It's sufficient for my purposes to show that the money went to an entity (or through a chain of entities) that funds such-and-such roster of candidates. It's not necessary to prove that a specific donated dollar wound up in a specific campaign.
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Replying to @Pinboard
Ok. The bulk data already does that. I mean, it's two queries, but it does it.
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Replying to @derekwillis
The point of what I'm asking for is to get this down to one query. Follow the chained PAC donations until all that's left is a list of candidate committees, possibly with a weighting.
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To give an analogy—you can't link a specific raincloud in Minnesota to a liter of water entering the Gulf of Mexico, but you can draw a map of the Mississippi River. I'm asking for tools to help with that mapping project
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