Understanding Lobbying Disclosure

The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (LDA), as amended by the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, establishes the federal framework for lobbying transparency. Organizations that employ lobbyists to influence federal policy must register with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House, and file quarterly activity reports. These filings are public and form the basis of the lobbying data displayed on KingSt.com.

What the Lobbying Disclosure Act Requires

The LDA requires lobbying firms and organizations that conduct in-house lobbying to register and file quarterly reports if they meet certain thresholds. For lobbying firms, the threshold is $3,000 in income from a single client in a quarterly period. For organizations lobbying on their own behalf, the threshold is $14,000 in total lobbying expenses per quarter (these figures are adjusted periodically).

Each registration must identify the client, the lobbyists employed, the general issue areas to be lobbied, and the specific agencies or chambers of Congress to be contacted. Quarterly reports update this information and add financial disclosures.

The filings are submitted to the Senate Office of Public Records, which maintains the public database accessible through the Senate LDA API. This database is the source for all lobbying data on KingSt.com.

Who Must Register as a Lobbyist

Under the LDA, a “lobbyist” is an individual who is employed or retained by a client, makes more than one lobbying contact on behalf of that client, and spends 20% or more of their time serving that client on lobbying activities during a quarterly period.

A “lobbying contact” is any oral or written communication to a covered executive or legislative branch official made on behalf of a client regarding legislation, rules, regulations, executive orders, nominations, or certain federal programs and policies.

Not all advocacy counts as lobbying under the law. Testimony before a congressional committee, communications made in response to a government request, and certain other categories are exempt. Grassroots lobbying — efforts to influence legislation by mobilizing the public — is not covered by the LDA, though some organizations voluntarily disclose it.

This means the LDA filings capture only a portion of the total influence activity in Washington. They cover direct professional lobbying but not advertising campaigns, think tank research, coalition building, or other strategies that organizations use to shape policy.

What a Quarterly Filing Contains

Each quarterly lobbying report includes the following information:

Client and registrant identification. The registrant is the lobbying firm or organization filing the report. The client is the entity on whose behalf the lobbying is conducted. In cases where an organization lobbies on its own behalf, it is both the registrant and the client.

Income or expenses. Lobbying firms report the income received from each client for lobbying activities during the quarter. Organizations that lobby on their own behalf report their total lobbying expenses. These figures are rounded to the nearest $10,000 for firms and $20,000 for self-filing organizations.

General issue area codes. Each filing identifies one or more issue area codes from a standardized list maintained by the Senate. There are 79 issue codes covering areas such as “TAX” (taxation), “HCR” (health issues), “DEF” (defense), “ENV” (environment/superfund), and “BNK” (banking). A single filing may list multiple issue codes if the lobbying covered several policy areas.

Specific lobbying issues. Within each general issue area, filers describe the specific bills, regulations, or policy topics they lobbied on. These descriptions vary in detail — some cite specific bill numbers, while others provide only general topic descriptions.

Lobbyists listed. Each filing identifies the individual lobbyists who worked on the account during the quarter, along with any covered official positions they previously held (the “revolving door” disclosure).

Government entities contacted. The filing identifies which chambers of Congress and executive branch agencies were contacted.

How to Interpret Lobbying Spend Numbers

The dollar figures in lobbying filings are frequently misunderstood. When a filing reports $500,000 in lobbying income for a quarter, that figure represents the total revenue the lobbying firm received from the client for all lobbying services during that period. It includes lobbyist salaries, overhead, research, travel, and administrative costs. It is not a payment to any government official, and it does not represent money given to or spent on members of Congress.

For organizations filing on their own behalf, the expense figure covers the total cost of their in-house lobbying operation for the quarter, including the salaries of government affairs staff, consultants, travel, and related costs.

The figures are self-reported and rounded. The LDA does not require audited financial statements, and enforcement has historically been limited. Researchers and journalists who work with this data treat it as a useful approximation of lobbying activity rather than a precise accounting.

What Issue Codes Mean on KingSt.com

KingSt.com maps the 79 Senate issue codes to congressional committees based on committee jurisdiction. For example, filings with the “BNK” (banking) issue code are associated with the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee. Filings with “DEF” (defense) are mapped to the Armed Services committees.

This mapping allows KingSt.com to show which organizations are lobbying on issues that fall under a specific committee’s jurisdiction, and by extension, which members of that committee are in a position to act on those issues.

The mapping is based on published committee jurisdictions and is an editorial judgment by KingSt.com. Some issue codes span multiple committees, and some lobbying activity does not neatly fit into any single committee’s jurisdiction. The mapping is a useful approximation but not an exact science.

Limitations of the Data

Lobbying disclosure data has several important limitations that users should keep in mind.

The data is self-reported. There is no independent verification of the dollar amounts, the issues described, or the contacts listed. The Government Accountability Office has conducted periodic audits and found varying levels of compliance.

The LDA does not capture all forms of influence. Strategic advisory services, public relations campaigns, grassroots mobilization, and academic or policy research are generally not covered unless they involve direct lobbying contacts with covered officials.

Filing deadlines mean the data runs on a lag. Quarterly reports are due 20 days after the end of each quarter, and KingSt.com refreshes its data after filings are published. There is always a delay between lobbying activity and its appearance on the site.

Finally, the existence of a lobbying filing does not indicate that any improper activity occurred. Lobbying is legal and constitutionally protected under the First Amendment right to petition the government. The purpose of disclosure is to make the process visible, not to suggest that lobbying is inherently problematic.