DOI: 10.6077/2ng3-3h62
title: Campaign Expenditures in the United States, 1985/1986: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Data

description: &lt;p&gt;These data are made available by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and are taken directly from campaign finance reports filed by candidates, political committees, and others who are required to file under the federal election laws. The files are essentially copies of the FEC's on-line computer files for the 1985-1986 election cycle. The Candidate Master File (Part 1) contains a record for each registered candidate for federal office. It includes the candidate's name, address, party affiliation, incumbent/challenger status, the identification number of the principal campaign committee, the office sought, and the election year. The Committee Master File (Part 2) contains a record for each registered committee for federal office. The information provided includes the committee's identification number, name, address, treasurer's name, committee designation and type, party affiliation, report filing frequency, special interest group category and connected organization's name, and multicandidate committee status. The Itemized PAC Contribution File (Part 3) presents all transactions (contributions or disbursements) by a political committee for or on behalf of/in opposition to a candidate for federal office or his/her authorized committee occurring during the 1985-1986 election cycle. Items include whether the transaction was made in connection with a 1985-1986 primary, general, special or runoff election, or with a prior or future election, the date and amount of transaction, and identification number of the filer on whose behalf the transaction took place. The Detailed Report File (Part 4) contains one record for each separate reporting period for each FEC committee and, as such, is the source for longitudinal information about committee financial activity during the 1985-1986 election cycle. Information presented in the file includes the political committee identification number, the report year and type, the time period covered by the report, total receipts and disbursements, beginning and end cash balances, debts owed by and to the committee, individual, political, and candidate contributions, transfers from affiliated committees, loans received and payments made, and refunds. (Source: downloaded from ICPSR 7/13/10)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Please Note&lt;/strong&gt;: This dataset is part of the historical CISER Data Archive Collection and is also available at ICPSR at &lt;a href="https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08939.v1"&gt;https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08939.v1&lt;/a&gt;. We highly recommend using the ICPSR version as they may make this dataset available in multiple data formats in the future.&lt;/p&gt;
description: Campaign Expenditures in the United States: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Data
description: collection_notes: The Candidate and Committee Master Files (Parts 1 and 2) are FEC reference files, and are needed to find the name of each committee or candidate associated with the identification numbers that appear in the detailed reports and PAC Contributions file.