Chicago Lobbyist Political Contributions

Lobbyist Data - Contributions tracks political donations made by registered lobbyists to candidates and officials in Chicago, as mandated by the city's Board of Ethics. The dataset includes details such as contribution amount, recipient, date, and the lobbyist's identity. It supports transparency and oversight of lobbying activities within Chicago's municipal government.

Use Cases

• Tracking total contributions to a specific candidate using RECIPIENT and AMOUNT.
• Analyzing lobbying activity patterns over time using CONTRIBUTION_DATE and LOBBYIST_ID.
• Identifying high-contributing lobbyists using LOBBYIST_LAST_NAME and aggregated AMOUNT.
• Verifying compliance with reporting periods using PERIOD_START and PERIOD_END.
• Linking lobbyists to their reported contributions using LOBBYIST_ID and CONTRIBUTION_ID.

Strengths

• Cross-platform presence on Socrata and Data.gov signals its importance and official status.
• Data is structured with specific identifiers (LOBBYIST_ID, CONTRIBUTION_ID) for reliable record linkage.
• The dataset is maintained by the City of Chicago, indicating an authoritative source.

Limitations

• Key metadata conflicts: Socrata lists a last updated date of 2026-05-28 (a future date), while Data.gov lists 2026-04-12.
• Critical metadata is missing from all sources: row count, file size, license, and author.
• The Data.gov source lacks column information, limiting understanding of its specific structure.

Provenance

Source

City of Chicago

Collection Method

Mandatory reports filed by registered lobbyists with the Chicago Board of Ethics.

Freshness

Most recent update info conflicts between sources: Socrata shows 2026-05-28, Data.gov shows 2026-04-12.

Geography

Chicago, Illinois, USA