Hi all, I have decided to do all of my own research for the upcoming elections, although it is in 2016 I still want to start as it will take some time. I do not want my information coming from 3rd parties ie CNN or FOX. I want to do my own research on current politicians and candidates. Information like: - What bills they have voted on - What is their overall policy history and activity - What are their beliefs on special interest topics (ie Abortion) - What level of influence has lobbyists made on them - to what extent are they swayed by lobbyists wishing - Who is funding their campaigns, who is donating? (what does it entail) - How well do they listen to the people they are representing (thoughts on how to gauge this?) Obviously some of this information can be found on the politicians website/through .gov websites however some I believe are more difficult to find such as lobbyist influence, and campaign funding - is this all public information? Also I am trying to find a way to gauge the last bullet point Thanks!
For starters, these three sites can be quite useful: http://www.ontheissues.org/default.htm http://www.opencongress.org/ http://www.opensecrets.org/ If there is anything else in particular you're looking for, let me know and I'll try to help.
Campaign funding information is all required by law to be publicly available. Rules about whether or not the reports must be made available electronically variety depending on the state county and municipality. My favorite day during any campaign cycle is always campaign finance report day. You can easily find out when these reports are due on the election commission responsible for overseeing the election you are interested in website. To truly understand how money is influencing a candidate it isn't enough to just glance over these reports further research is necessary. Out of habit I always begin by creating a file about each of the political action committees (PACS) that have donated money to a candidate. I try to answer questions like "Who is on the board of these committees, what relationship and history do board members publicly have with the candidate? What are rumors political consultants and local campaign staffers are gossiping about regarding the organization or the board members? (If you don't know anyone inside the world of staffers they relatively easy to find. Start with incumbents staff members find their social media pages and then look through their friends for people with titles like campaign manager or field director communication director finance director. Follow the chain of people from any of there friends. Trust me it is a small community, they are all connected through social media. What is the mission of the committee? Who are it's chief financial backers, where do they get their wealth from? The further you dig the more you learn obviously , usually I go to the courthouse and submit public records request regarding every individual that has financial ties to candidates I'm interested in. If the candidate is an incumbent lobbyist/special interest influence is often quite apparent and the higher the office the more apparent it becomes. Usually it is corporate special interests that provide the best easiest to find examples. Say you've done your research and pulled reports for a veteran congressman's past four elections. You notice the same several PACS and executives with ties to the companies these pacs are lobbying for all max out to the congressman every cycle. Let's just say these pacs are all closely tied to Drug Testing companies, Privite Prison companies, and road construction companies. A quick call to the congressman's office should allow you to request all legislation sponsored or introduced by the congressman that related to these industries. If 9 times out of 10 there is a montery benift created by the policy for the company you can beat your life he only voted the way he did on the bill to appease his financial backers. A good rule is if their is a viable candidate in the race that takes public funding for a campaign or publicly announces he/she will not accept pac donations they are probably a pretty exceptionally ethical politician. Another good way to establish connections between lobbyist and a legislator is by submitting a public information request for all the emails and office communication that mentions a person or group you suspect is influence your rep. Beliefs on special interest topics like abortion, gay marriage. drug policy. social programs and so on are a little tricky to ascertain especially if the candidate has never held office before. Most of what they say during a campaign is a result of a crafted message and has little to nothing to do with the personal feelings of the candidate, rather it is meant to segment of a voting of fundraising block and is a calculated position based on gain verses lose considerations. However, candidates often let their true personal feelings slip in things like obscure blog or facebook posts from pre campaign days, academic papers they publish, private conversations with staffers and friends. Usually if you call enough people friendly with a candidate someone will tell you how he or she really feels. Get a couple people to repeat the same info and it is a good bet that it is true. Does the candidate or elected hold regular town halls in which he takes questions from the public? Are his answers scripted or do the seem genuine. Do the questions have to pre submitted or can anyone ask anything within apprioate polite standards and expect to recieve a straight forward response. Is the candidate or a senior staff member available via phone or email during the work day? If someone is already in office, how well they listen can be gauged through yet another public records request. Legislators often have consitutient affairs directors working in a district office whose soul purpose is to respond to and address the issues of constituents on a case by case basis. Some offices respond follow up and satisfactorily resolve 90 plus percent of cases within a few weeks of opening them. However, if an office is responding to or resolving less than 60-65 percent and taking an obscene amount of time to acknowledge the case after receiving it (I've seen offices that have not responded to cases that are well over a year old) than it is a really good bet that legislator could really care less about what his constituents have to say, particularly if it is more than a year away from the next election or they are so entrenched that the likelihood they will ever be challenged is near zero. These guys/gals are usually the most egregious offenders in terms of selling their votes to special interest groups. Policy history activity, background on most races will be widely reported in traditional media outlets. If the race is very small and very local usually a blogger will write out the history or it almost always can be found in a pretty version on a candidates website. Public information requests are as always your friend, just as you can get everything related to a donor it is pretty easy to obtain court records, school records, marital history, tax history, credit history, almost anything you re willing to sift through to find out every detail of a candidates life. I usually find out if his mother or father is living and call them, if not sister brother aunt uncle cousin, best friend whatever will usually suffice. The other factor one should look at when researching a candidate is what 501 c4 organizations are doing to infunance a campaign's outcome either in favor or against the candidate you are looking into. These groups spend money independent of the campaign's and by law are not allowed to coordinated there actives with a candidate. These groups are the shady under belly of dark money influencing politics. Usually I hire an investigator if I'm concerned about a c4 because looking into the actives almost always requires a professional investigation.
