Where Florida's money in politics is recorded, and what the wire will pull from it

Money in Florida politics leaves a paper trail, and most of it ends up in three places. The Florida Division of Elections keeps the reports filed by candidates and committees in state races.¹ The Federal Election Commission keeps the reports filed in races for Congress and the presidency.² The Florida Lobbyist Registration Office keeps the registrations of the lobbyists who represent clients before the Legislature and the executive branch.³

The state record

The Division of Elections’ campaign finance database covers candidates for statewide and legislative office, political committees and political parties. Their reports list the contributions they received and the expenditures they made, with the name of each contributor, the amount and the date. Candidates for county and city offices generally file with their local supervisor of elections or city clerk instead, so their reports are kept by those offices.¹

The federal record covers Florida’s candidates for the U.S. House and Senate, the presidential campaigns that raise money in the state, and the political action committees and party committees that spend in federal races. The FEC publishes the filings themselves along with searchable data drawn from them.²

The lobbying record

Lobbyists who represent clients before the Legislature or executive branch agencies must register for each principal they represent, and lobbying firms file compensation reports each quarter that show, in ranges, what they were paid.³ Read alongside the campaign reports, the registrations show which interests are active in Tallahassee and who represents them.

The DNS wire will read all three sources and report new filings as they appear, each wire story citing the report it describes. A wire story states what a filing says. Reading patterns across many filings, and asking what they mean, is the work of the Politics desk’s reporting and analysis.