Using CFI, NIMP, and CRP Campaign Finance Data for Teaching and Research

The Political Organizations and Parties Section (POP) sponsored a short course the day before the APSA meeting in Boston. The course featured three executive directors representing campaign finance data collectors and disseminators:

*   Sheila Krumholz (Center for Responsive Politics)
*   Edwin Bender (National Institute on Money in State Politics)
*   Michael J. Malbin, (Campaign Finance Institute)

Among the topics they covered were the following:

*   Using unique entity identifiers from NIMP and CRP to trace donors,
lobbyists, and recipients, across all fifty states (NIMSP) and the federal
level (CRP and NIMP) over time;
*   Using CRP and NIMP for cross-tracking committee memberships,
campaign contributions, and lobbying expenditures, with legislative
jurisdictions and actions;
*   Combining CFI’s historical database of state campaign finance laws
with other data sources to analyze the impact of campaign finance law on
outcomes;
*   Combining large data sets from these organizations with other large
data sets; and
*   Using CRP to track spending by super PACs and dark money groups;
political ad data; and foreign lobbying data, as well the personal
finances, net worth and potential conflicts of interest of Members of
Congress and public officials over time;

Additional contributions were made by professors who use these data in their teaching:
*   Paul Herrnson (University of Connecticut) discussed his use of
CRP data to study super PACs, including coding and cleaning the data;
combining them with additional data; addressing anomalies; and analyzing,
at different units of analysis, contributions and expenditures.
*   Jaclyn Kettler (Boise State University) provided examples of
previous courses using the websites¹ resources for classroom applications,
demonstrating features helpful for lectures and undergraduate research
projects.

Following on the success of this year’s short course, next year (2019) we are planning a short course on the topic of how to conduct interviews of elites (policymakers, lobbyists, party leaders, etc.). Anticipated featured presenters include Beth L. Leech and John Zaller.