Foreign Lobby Watch

The Situation:

At the Center for Responsive Politics, we’re committed to following the money, no matter where it comes from. That’s why, in 2018, we launched our Foreign Lobby Watch (FLW) tool, providing top of class, free, public data on foreign lobbying and lobbyists, including lobbying by foreign governments, companies and individuals.

As part of a project inherited from the Sunlight Foundation, the Center for Responsive Politics has compiled data sourced from Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings from the 1940s through 2019. These records are now searchable by country, lobbyist or political operative name, registrant, foreign principal, and more.

In short, every American voter can now quickly learn which foreign interests are seeking to influence U.S policy, and how much they are spending to accomplish this goal.

How you can help:

Just about any country you can think of has interests in the United States, and many governments, companies and other entities pay foreign agents to influence U.S. policy and opinion in pursuit of those interests. We’re committed to ensuring that every American citizen has access to this information, and to supporting more factual, data-driven discussion of foreign influence in the the media.

With your support, we will:

●    Continue to standardize existing data, allowing us to link it to other relevant data sets.

●    Enhance FLW’s search functions and develop new tools, allowing us and others to discover new connections between FARA data and data from other sources ( e.g., domestic lobbying data, campaign contributions, Congressional bill sponsorship, etc.).

●    Increase the number of reporting partnerships to enhance and improve coverage of foreign lobbying efforts, revealing the networks and activities of those involved in both influencing and making policy.

●   Improve public knowledge around foreign lobbying, through the production of online guides,  as well as in-person and online webinars on the use of the FLW tool, like this one.