U.S. City Open Data Census
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A complete suite of lobbying data should include information about registration and activity — who is paying lobbyists and, ideally, how much and where money is spent.
For the purposes of the U.S. City Open Data Census, lobbyist activity data should include structured information from the registration and activity reports that lobbyists are required to file: lobbyist information, client information, and descriptions of lobbying activity. Public access to this data is essential for the public to gain insight into the world of municipal influence.
Note: In some cities lobbyist registration data will be seperate from lobbyist activity data.
(More info)
| Question | Answer | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Openly licensed | Yes | Public domain; no specific restrictions identified. |
| Available in bulk | Yes | Download is limited to Excel spreadsheet of top-level data. Individual documents for each lobbyist registration that includes detail-level data is downloadable on a per-doc basis in PDF format. |
| Up-to-date | Yes | According to the site, reports are updated nightly. |
| Available free online | Yes | |
| Available free of charge | Yes | |
| In an open format | XLS | |
| findable | 4 | |
| findable_steps | I googled "oakland, ca lobbying activity" and both links represented the two top search results. | |
| licence_url | https://library.municode.com/ca/oakland/codes/code_of_o | From the City of Oakland Code of Ordinances: "3.20.080 - Availability of information. All registration information shall be retained by the City Clerk for a period of five years from the date of filing, shall constitute part of the public records of the city, and shall be open to public inspection. (Ord. 12782 § 3 (part), 2007; Ord. 12431 (part), 2002)" |
| Collected by government | Yes | |
| usability | 2 | Data is freely available but requires a few clicks to drill down into detail level. |
| collector_name | City of Oakland Public Ethics Commission | |
| characteristics | Lobbyist registration information — including name, contact information, and date of registration, Client information — including name and contact information of the individual or firm paying for the lobbyist’s time, Description of lobbying activity — including name of the public official lobbied, date contact was made, specific request, decision, or policy discussed | Detailed info is available on a per-doc basis on download (more limited info is displayed at the URL). |
| location | href="https://www2.oaklandnet.com/government/o/CityAdministration/d/PublicEthics/o/Lobbyists/lobbyist-disclosure/index.htm" https://www2.oaklandnet.com/government/o/CityAdministrat">rel="nofollow">https://www2.oaklandnet.com/government/o/CityAdministrat - List of lobbyists registered with the city by year., href="https://public.netfile.com/pub2/Default.aspx?aid=COAK&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1" https://public.netfile.com/pub2/Default.aspx?aid=COAK&A">rel="nofollow">https://public.netfile.com/pub2/Default.aspx?aid=COAK&A - City of Oakland Public Ethics Commission Public Portal for Campaign Finance and Lobbyist Disclosure | First link is a data table that includes: first & last name of lobbyist, client, and official(s) lobbied, sorted by year. Second link is a searchable portal of the full data, including: |
