We've created a map of the political campaign contributions from companies in the oil & gas industries to politicians who are candidates for federal office. This is a relationship map of the contribution network. That means that unlike a physical map, where points are positioned at a geographic location, the icons for the companies and candidates are placed so that they are that they are as close as possible to whomever they contribute to or receive contributions from.

Another way to imagine it is like a molecule: the companies and candidates are like atoms, and the contributions are like atomic bonds. Or, one can think of it like the popular websites Facebook or MySpace, in which companies and politicians have become 'friends' by giving money.

Example of Clinton's contribution network

Example: Contributions to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign.

How does it work?

We wrote software to go through a database of contributions and pull out all the contributions from known oil company Political Action Committees or employees thereof. We only look at the contributions that went to the selected group of elected officials (House, Senate, etc.) while they were in office. (Or, in the case of the presidential races, while running for office.) Contributions that are below the specified minimum are discarded.

Next, we check how much each company gave, and how much each candidate received and exclude those that don't meet the minimum that has been set (under 'Filters'). We add up all the contributions and run this data through network visualization software to position the companies and politicians according to their ties. We also pull the identification numbers for the original FEC records so that it is possible to click through from the table view and see the exact FEC filing the data came from.

Where did you get the data?

Anybody who runs for federal office is required to file reports with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) giving the names and addresses of everyone who donates more than $250 to the campaign. This information is available free of charge from the FEC. We also purchased data from the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics that that group has painstakingly cleaned and categorized. We also used tools, data, and information from the following sources:

Center for Responsive Politics

Categorized oil contributions and company names
Assistance with data interpretation

GovTrack.us

Candidate photos (courtesy of the Government Printing office)
Information about who is in office when

Sunlight Labs API.

Some additional candidate photos
Information about current members of congress
ID number conversion tables
Zip code lookup

Images of company logos were acquired from company websites without permission or authorization and may be under copyright of the respective companies. They are used here nominatively to refer to the companies and do not in any way indicate an endorsement or sponsorship of this project by any of these firms.

How recent is this data?

Most candidates are only required to file quarterly, so in some cases data may be several months old. There is some additional delay while the FEC and the Center for Responsive Politics process the data. The date of the most recent FEC data release that we are using is shown on the bottom of each page. You can view the date of each contribution by looking in the details of the table view.

What do the settings under 'Filters' do?

To make our relationship maps easier to read, we've included filters that make it possible set what range of values should be shown. Adjusting these settings to lower values will include more of the corresponding elements in the relationship and table views. For example, setting the option to 'Show contribution in the top 75%' means that all the contributions except the smallest values will be included in the views. (The actual dollar values used for filtering are displayed under the title for the map)

The 'Show contributions' option refers to each individual contribution received by a member/candidate, By decreasing the minimum contribution amount, you will expand the number of listed contributions.
The 'Show candidates' option filters out politicians based on total amount of money that the member or candidate accepted from the Oil and Gas Industry in the given time period. By decreasing the minimum total, more members/candidates will appear in the relationship map or table.
The 'Show companies' option filters out companies based on the total amount of money that each company gave to federal candidates or members in the given time period. If a company gave less than the stated minimum, their details will not be listed on the relationship map or table. By decreasing the minimum total, more companies will appear.

How do I show more (or fewer) companies on the map/table?

See the 'Filters' settings above

What is the Table View for?

The Table View and the Relationship View always show the same data from two different perspectives. The Table View allows you to sort every politician in the graph, to see the amounts from all of a candidate's contributors at the same time, and to link directly to the FEC image file of the report-- but it is much harder to get a picture of all the relationships at the same time in this view.

Why don't the column in the table views add up to the candidate's total?

The most common reason for this is that the filter settings (see 'Filters' above) are hiding some of the contributions in order to simplify the display. The hidden contributions are still included in the totals. To view all the contributions, you can set the contribution limit lower, or look at politician's profile view.

How are the results from the Zip Code and Name Search different from other views?

The Search views allow you to find members of Congress either by your zip code or by typing part of their name. The result will be a list of members. Clicking on any of the members will show a profile with the total since 2000 as well as totals for each Congressional cycle. Clicking any of these cycles will show a map of contributions to the member for that year (only).

What software did you use?

The data are stored in a MySql database. We use PHP to build the web pages and to format the data in order run through the open-source Graphviz software to compute the positions of the companies and candidates on the layout. The resulting image is combined with custom Javascript code to create the interactive elements. The interactive tables are created in part using the Prototype script.aculo.us and TableKit ajax libraries.

What do the negative values mean? Are politicians paying oil companies now?

Well, not directly. Negative values usually indicate repayment of a debt, or the return of a contribution from an earlier year.

What do the companies 'Oil & Gas' or 'Oil & Gas Exploration' mean?

Some people who work in the oil and gas industry list their occupations as 'self-employed' or 'consultant,' so we don't know exactly which company they work for.

Is this showing me the money they accepted while in office, or the money they got while running for office?

For each congressional session we show the members of congress who were in office and the contributions they received during that session. Since Senators have six-year terms, we are only showing two years of their term at a time. For the presidential races, we show the contributions made to the campaign while they were running for office.

Why are the contributions from the 106th congress lower?

Currently our data only goes back as far as 2000. This means that we have only half the data for the 106th congress so the totals for that congress will appear artificially lower.

What does the category 'pre-term contributions' in the congress profiles mean?

For congress members we show the contributions received during each term they were in office. This means that the contributions they receive during their initial campaign would not be included. So we added an additional category for these contributions to make sure they are included in the total.

How do I find the specific contribution I'm looking for on the FEC form?

Each FEC form image corresponds to three or more contributions. In most cases the campaign committee for the candidate receiving the donation is listed at the top of the page. The transactions are usually identified by the letters 'A, B, C' in the left margin. Next to each letter is the name of the contributor, below is the address and employer information. The amount of the contribution is shown in the box on the right.

When I look at the image of the report filing from the FEC I see a different year entered for the campaign, why?

Sometimes politicians use contributions to pay off debts from old campaigns, or have already begun collecting for future campaigns.

Why are contributions from 'Mrs. Bigoil' included with 'Very Big Oil Company Inc.' when she doesn't work there?

One of the ways that campaigns get around contribution limits is to have the candidates' spouses and family members make contributions. CRP matches up individuals who have the same last names and addresses as company executives and includes them as well.

Hey, I live in Texas or Georgia and it told me the wrong representative for my zip code!

Some of the district data for Texas and Georgia is out of date due to congressional redistricting. We will update our data as soon as it�s available. In the meantime, if you know the name of your representative you can do a direct name search for your member.

Where can I find more about the influence of oil companies in American politics?

You are in the right place, check out the rest of the Oil Change International website.

Where can I find more information about other kinds of contributions to candidates?

A good place to start is the website of the Center for Responsive Politics.