Press & Data

GRIFTR is a free, nonpartisan civic transparency tool that cross-references congressional campaign finance, lobbying exposure, stock trading disclosures, revolving door dynamics, and voting records into a single representative profile.

What Makes GRIFTR Different

GRIFTR is the only free public platform that combines five domains of congressional financial activity in one place. The Financial Entanglement Index (FEI) quantifies how financially intertwined each member of Congress is with outside interests — a metric no other platform computes. Our data comes exclusively from official government sources: FEC, Congress.gov, Senate LDA, House Clerk, and Census.

Key Findings

  • 100% PhRMA capture of Energy & Commerce: All 54 members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee share the same #1 lobbying client — Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. Zero exceptions.
  • AIPAC reaches 34% of Congress: 184 members (94R, 90D) show AIPAC-related lobbying as their top client — the broadest single-organization penetration in the dataset.
  • Committee jurisdiction drives lobbying: Financial entanglement is determined by committee assignment, not party, ideology, or individual fundraising choices.
  • Bipartisan financial entanglement: Cross-party cosponsorship rates are identical (~50%) regardless of FEI score. Financial entanglement is orthogonal to partisan behavior.

Data Sources

FEC
Campaign contributions
Congress.gov
Bills, votes, committees
Senate LDA
Lobbying disclosures
House Clerk
Stock trade filings
Senate EFTS
Senate trade details
Census
District demographics

Methodology

The Financial Entanglement Index (FEI) is a percentile-based composite across six components: campaign finance, lobbying exposure, stock trading activity, revolving door dynamics, independent expenditures, and bill exposure. Each component is scored as a percentile rank within the member's chamber. Lobbying exposure is attributed via committee jurisdiction — reflecting the lobbying pressure a member faces based on their committee assignments, not direct payments to the member.

Full methodology details are available on the About page.

Downloadable Data

Representatives Dataset (CSV)
543 members, 67 columns — finance, lobbying, voting, stock trades, FEI scores

Data is derived from public federal records. Please cite GRIFTR (griftr.us) when using this data in published work.

For Journalists

GRIFTR is built to make reporters' jobs easier. If you're covering a specific representative, committee, or industry influence story, we can provide targeted data and context. Representative profiles include direct links to every underlying government filing.

Embed links: any GRIFTR representative profile page can be linked directly. Format: griftr.us/rep/[bioguideId]

Contact

Media inquiries
For data requests, story collaboration, or press inquiries: Contact form
GRIFTR is a nonpartisan civic transparency tool. It does not endorse candidates, support legislation, or accept political advertising. All data is sourced from public federal records.