Deprecation Notice
The advanced search feature, as well as the Influence Explorer API are approaching end of life, and will be retired on December 31st, 2015. Please refer to our deprecation notice for more details.
API
Register for an API key at Sunlight Data Services. This key can be used to access all of the Sunlight Labs data APIs.
The Influence Explorer API provides programmatic access to all data (both raw and aggregate) available on Influence Explorer. All of its endpoints are structured as follows:
http://transparencydata.com/api/1.0/<method>.<format>
The methods and formats available are listed in the categories at left. Note that while the user-facing functionality formerly hosted at the transparencydata.com address has now been integrated into Influence Explorer, transparencydata.com continues to be the domain where our data APIs are hosted.
License
Data returned by this service is subject to the use restrictions set by the Federal Election Commission. By accessing this data, you understand that you are using the data subject to all applicable local, state and federal law, including FEC restrictions.
All data licensed under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. By downloading data and accessing the API you are agreeing to the terms of the license.
Federal campaign contribution and lobbying records must be attributed to OpenSecrets.org.
State campaign contribution records must be attributed to FollowTheMoney.org.
Authentication
An API key is required to access the Influence Explorer API. Registration is easy and if you already have a Sunlight Data Services key you can use it here.
The API key must be an apikey query string parameter. Example:
http://transparencydata.com/api/1.0/contributions.csv?apikey=<key>&...
Common Parameters
These parameters are common to all API methods.
- apikey
- Required if the X-APIKEY HTTP header is not used.
- page
- The page of results to return; defaults to 1.
- per_page
- The number of results to return per page, defaults to 1,000. The maximum number of records per page is 100,000.
