How to Read KingSt.com

KingSt.com aggregates publicly available data about the United States Congress into a single interface. The site pulls from official government sources — the Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act database, the Federal Election Commission, the House Clerk, and the Senate — to present voting records, lobbying activity, campaign finance, and committee assignments for every sitting member of Congress.

This guide explains what each data point means and how to interpret it.

What KingSt.com Tracks

Every member profile on KingSt.com includes four categories of information:

1. Voting records — How a member voted on roll call votes in the House or Senate, including whether they voted with or against their party.
2. Lobbying disclosures — Which organizations are spending money to lobby the committees a member sits on, and how much they report spending.
3. Campaign finance — Who is funding a member’s campaigns, broken down by PAC contributions and individual donations.
4. Committee assignments — Which committees and subcommittees a member belongs to, and what jurisdiction those committees have.

Each of these data points is sourced from a different federal database and updated on different schedules. The Data Sources page has specifics on each source.

Understanding Party Loyalty

On each member’s profile, KingSt.com displays a party loyalty percentage. This number represents how often a member voted with the majority of their own party on roll call votes during the current Congress.

For example, if a Republican member has a party loyalty score of 92%, it means that on 92% of roll call votes where a majority of Republicans voted one way, that member voted with the majority. The remaining 8% are “defections” — votes where the member broke from their party’s majority position.

Party loyalty is calculated only on votes where the two parties took opposing majority positions. Votes where both parties largely agreed are excluded because they do not reveal meaningful partisan alignment.

Defections matter because they indicate where a member is willing to break from their party. A member who defects frequently on environmental legislation but never on tax votes, for example, has a specific pattern that may correlate with their district’s interests, their committee assignments, or the lobbying activity directed at them.

A high party loyalty score does not inherently mean a member is a partisan ideologue, and a low score does not mean they are a moderate. The score is descriptive, not evaluative. Context matters — the specific votes on which a member defects are often more informative than the aggregate number.

Understanding Lobbying Data

The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 requires organizations that employ lobbyists to file quarterly reports with the Senate Office of Public Records. These reports disclose the issues lobbied on, the agencies contacted, the specific lobbyists involved, and the income or expenses associated with lobbying activity.

On KingSt.com, lobbying data appears on committee pages and is linked to member profiles through committee assignments. When a lobbying filing reports activity on an issue that falls under a particular committee’s jurisdiction, KingSt.com associates that filing with the committee.

The dollar amounts shown represent the total reported lobbying income or expenses for a given quarter. These figures are self-reported by the lobbying firm or organization and are rounded to the nearest $10,000 (or $20,000 for organizations that lobby on their own behalf). The numbers reflect the total cost of lobbying activity across all branches and agencies — they are not payments to individual lawmakers.

It is important to understand what lobbying spend does not show. The figures do not indicate that money went to any specific member of Congress. They represent the cost of the overall lobbying operation, which includes lobbyist salaries, research, travel, and other expenses related to advocacy.

Understanding Campaign Finance

Campaign finance data on KingSt.com comes from the Federal Election Commission, which requires all federal candidates to report their fundraising and expenditures. KingSt.com displays two primary categories of contributions:

PAC contributions are donations from Political Action Committees — organizations that pool individual contributions and distribute them to candidates. PACs are often affiliated with corporations, labor unions, trade associations, or ideological groups. Federal law limits PAC contributions to $5,000 per candidate per election.

Individual contributions are donations from private citizens. Federal law limits individual contributions to $3,300 per candidate per election (as of the 2024 cycle; this amount is adjusted for inflation). KingSt.com aggregates individual contributions by employer when that information is available, which allows users to see which companies’ employees are funding a given candidate.

Campaign finance data does not include “dark money” — spending by organizations that are not required to disclose their donors, such as certain 501(c)(4) nonprofits. It also does not include independent expenditures (spending by outside groups that is not coordinated with a candidate’s campaign), which are reported separately.

Understanding Committee Assignments

Congressional committees are where most legislative work happens. Bills are referred to committees based on subject matter jurisdiction, and committee members hold hearings, mark up legislation, and decide whether bills advance to the full chamber for a vote.

Committee assignments matter because they determine which policy areas a member has direct influence over. A member of the Senate Banking Committee has more direct involvement in financial regulation than a member who sits on the Agriculture Committee, regardless of how they vote on the floor.

KingSt.com lists each member’s committee and subcommittee assignments and links them to the lobbying activity directed at those committees. This connection is central to the site’s purpose.

How the Data Connects

The distinctive feature of KingSt.com is that it connects these data streams. Most transparency sites present voting records, lobbying data, and campaign finance in isolation. KingSt.com links them through committee assignments.

The chain works like this: an organization files a lobbying disclosure reporting activity on a specific issue. That issue falls under the jurisdiction of a congressional committee. That committee has members. Those members have voting records and campaign finance profiles.

This does not imply causation. The fact that an organization lobbied a committee and a committee member later voted a certain way does not mean the lobbying caused the vote. Correlation in political data is common and often reflects shared interests rather than direct influence. But the connection is worth examining, and making it visible is the purpose of the site.

KingSt.com presents the data. Users draw their own conclusions.