Context

I wanted to make this finance data about US representatives (very generous of OpenSecrets.org to provide that) available to all for easy data analysis & data science.

Content

This dataset contains the personal finance details of US representatives (Senate, House & the Executive) on the following topics from 2004 to 2016 (varying date ranges for different topics) :

• Agreements
• Assets
• Compensation
• Gifts
• Honoraria
• Income
• Liability
• Positions
• Transactions
• Travel

For each of these topics, it has exact amounts or amount ranges, details about the topic like asset type, asset income, industry, sector, etc. & candidate information including candidate name, party, chamber & state & district. There is also information about the members of the 113th, 114th & 115th congress along with congressional committees.

You can find the official Data Dictionary Data Dictionary & the User Guide

Acknowledgements

The source of this data is the Bulk data at https://www.opensecrets.org/

Documentation : https://www.opensecrets.org/open-data/bulk-data-documentation

Please follow the Terms Of Service for using this data : https://www.opensecrets.org/open-data/terms-of-service

Inspiration

I hope that we can analyze this data & understand more about the personal finance of US representatives to help us all going forward. Some questions to be answered :

• Which candidates have the highest/lowest net worth?
• What kind of investments & in which industry/sector do candidates that you are interested in have?
• What are the trends that we in terms of income, investments, etc. for different chambers/parties?