We often hear exaggerated claims about the influence of corporations or other well-resourced entities over public life (e.g., "the government is captured by corporations/the wealthy/etc*").  After hearing one too many of these comments, we decided to investigate the extent of private influence over public policy in a more rigorous manner.  Thus, the project began with a simple question: to what extent, and through which channels, do organized interests influence public policy?

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To get some traction on this project, and to build off of some work Steve had already done, we look at lobbying the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a process called notice and comment rule making.**  Before you say "ugh, bureaucracy!", think of this project as trying to figure out what makes lobbying effective.    

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This website documents the four prongs of this project:

• Metadata on all comments from 2000 - 2021 

  • This includes matching every comment to a "base entity", so that, for example, all comments from the Bank of America are correctly attributed to that bank

  • We've also classified those entities based on the type of organization (i.e non-profit, for-profit, government, etc...)

  • Linking all the base entities to IDs used by other databases including CIK (Central Information Key) numbers, stock tickers, RSSD numbers, etc.

  • All comment texts from 2000 - 2021 -  including those that use alternative formatting that are easy to exclude

• Metadata on all meetings between the SEC and organized interests 

  • This includes all organizations involved in meeting the SEC ​

• Data on the staff in those meetings

  • Including their job titles and prior experience in meetings ​

• All academic studies cited by the SEC in proposed and final rules from 2000 - 2022

 

Together, these form a portrait of who influences policy at what stage.  It is important to note, however, that the period before the issuance of the proposed rule is a bit of a black box.  Nevertheless, we believe that we've created the most comprehensive picture of influence at an agency that exists today.    

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Acknowledgements

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This project would not have been possible without the support of the Salem Center at the University of Texas, Austin.  We thank them for the funding and their helpful suggestions, and their patience as we put together this massive undertaking.  

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*An anonymous ride share driver suggested that this group includes space lizards/wizards.  As they say in academia, that's beyond the scope of this project but there's a great cartoon about it that I've linked above.

** After Congress promulgates a law (e.g., Dodd-Frank or the Inflation Reduction Act) they send it to an agency to be implemented.  Agencies then write rules for how the laws will be implemented and put the rules in the Federal Register.  At this point, anyone/any organization can submit a comment on the rule.  After the public comment period ends, an agency reads all of the comments and then (sometimes) incorporate these comments into the final rule, which has the force of a law. 

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