Public Agency Lobbying Totals: Quarterly Financial Reports

Washington State public agencies report their quarterly lobbying expenditures on Form L5, with each row representing a year's summary. The dataset includes columns for quarterly amounts (Q1-Q4), annual totals, and agency contact details like name, address, and filer_id. It is published by the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) as a best-effort compilation and is subject to legal restrictions on commercial use.

Use Cases

• Tracking annual lobbying expenditure trends for an agency using the year and year_total columns.
• Comparing quarterly spending patterns across agencies using the Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 columns.
• Identifying and contacting reporting agencies using the name, address, city, state, and zip_code columns.
• Linking financial summaries to original source documents using the Q1_url, Q2_url, Q3_url, and Q4_url columns.
• Verifying report filings and identifiers using the filer_id and Q1_report_num, Q2_report_num, Q3_report_num, Q4_report_num columns.

Strengths

• Data is structured as a time series with explicit quarterly and annual totals, facilitating temporal analysis.
• Includes direct URLs to original source reports (Q1_url, etc.), supporting verification and deeper investigation.
• Published by an official state commission (Washington State PDC), indicating an authoritative government source.

Limitations

• The dataset is explicitly described as a 'best-effort' compilation that 'may contain incomplete or incorrect information'.
• Key metadata such as row count, total size, and precise license are missing from all platform listings.
• There is a conflict in the 'last updated' timestamp between platforms (2026-05-26 vs. 2026-04-12), raising questions about update frequency and synchronization.

Provenance

Source

Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC)

Collection Method

Collected from mandatory Form L5 filings submitted by public agencies.

Freshness

2026-05-26 21:34:38

Geography

Washington State, United States