SARAH BRYNER, CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS

Unique Lobbyist Identifiers

Defining the Problem

Lobbyist data, provided by House and Senate, is unstandardized.

Impossible to tell whether…

Bryner, Sarah

Bryner, Sarah

The problem, cont.

Different counts on the # of lobbyists. 13,600 from the Senate 12,000 from OpenSecrets

Cohen, Stephen = Cohen, Steve = Cohen, Stephen A?

Many Faces

Same name, different people

John J. Smith John Q. Smith&

John Smith

One Face

Many Names, One Person

Meg Jones Megan T. Jones

Meg Taylor Jones

Megan S. Taylor-Jones

Who’s Who?

Lobbyists get married, change their namesLobbyists get divorced, change their namesLobbyists change employers, move in and out of government

Why this Matters

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 20120

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

Number of Lobbyists HLOGA passed

Why this matters?

What can be done?

What can be done?

New Column Here

Lobbyist ID!

Old Data…

FilerID LobbyistNameF74AE85A-CF1B-4AFD-A653-B12F29371898 NELSON, N JASON50313470-E3FD-4423-BA8A-D264DD5BC256 NELSON, JASON88BE0470-6CE8-4783-802B-578CB06951CD EVANS, TIMOTHYA4E7B027-2CF1-435A-A7E5-246A244B5D7F JOHNSON, KEVINEAF26801-179F-4C11-9D3C-F82F5260C0AB PAVEL, MARY

New Data!

FilerID LobbyistName Lobbyist-ID F74AE85A-CF1B-4AFD-A653-B12F29371898 NELSON, N JASON 1 50313470-E3FD-4423-BA8A-D264DD5BC256 NELSON, JASON 1 88BE0470-6CE8-4783-802B-578CB06951CD EVANS, TIMOTHY 2 A4E7B027-2CF1-435A-A7E5-246A244B5D7F JOHNSON, KEVIN 596 EAF26801-179F-4C11-9D3C-F82F5260C0AB PAVEL, MARY 453