Source: https://www.followthemoney.org/our-data/our-data-in-action
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 10:38:08+00:00

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A wide range of organizations and individuals, from legal experts to scholars to individual citizens, use our data for their research, analyses, and advocacy. Explore how others have utilized our data in their publications, and tell us how you have put our data to use.
Writing from tiny weeklies to the giant New York Times, investigative journalists around the nation rely on Institute data for hard-hitting stories on money in politics.
Concurring opinion by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ginsberg, Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar, published April 29, 2015, cited collaborative Institute report: A. Bannon, E. Velasco, L. Casey, & L. Reagan, "The New Politics of Judicial Elections 2011–12" and an earlier report.
Majority opinion by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice C.J. Roberts cited the Institute in his discussion of transparency, McCutcheon v. FEC, page 36, published April 2, 2014.
Brennan Center for Justice cited Institute data in their brief for Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal. On June 8, 2009 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for a state supreme court justice to sit on a case involving the financial interests of a major donor to the judge's election campaign.
Justice Souter cited the Institute's report, "The New Politics of Judicial Elections, 2006," as well as "State Elections Overview 2004" as evidence for his dissenting opinion in the landmark 2007 US Supreme Court decision on Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right To Life.
The Institute co-signed an amicus curiae brief for the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, heard by the US Supreme Court in 2009. Campaign Legal Center and Justice at Stake relied on Institute data in preparing their briefs to the Court.
In Western Tradition Partnership v. Attorney General, the Montana Supreme Court cited Institute evidence presented in an affidavit. The court ruled in favor of Montana’s ban on corporate spending in elections, overturning a previous decision by the District Court.
Institute data was cited in legal publications more than 1,000 times in the past decade. See more legal use of Institute data here.
Researchers nationwide use Institute data for their analyses. More than 2,000 publications range from the impact of small contributions to the role of money in judicial races to examinations of public financing. See academic and other use of Institute data here.
Citizen Policy Tool: The Campaign Finance Institute's interactive tool for citizen policy analysts allows users to see how changes in their state's campaign finance policies could increase the number of small donors, thereby reducing candidates' dependence on wealthy large donors.
Center for Political Accountability: CPA uses an innovative strategy of shareholder engagement to persuade corporations to disclose their political spending, and to oversee it.
Center for Responsive Politics: Nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, CRP produces and disseminates data and analysis on money in federal politics to inform and engage Americans, champion transparency, and expose disproportionate or undue influence on public policy.
MapLight: A nonpartisan research organization that reveals money’s influence on politics in the U.S. Congress and in the California and Wisconsin state legislatures. It provides transparency tools that connect data on campaign contributions, politicians, legislative votes, industries, and companies.
Ballotpedia: A nonpartisan website that covers local, state and federal politics. Content is neutral, accurate, and verifiable information on government officials and the offices they hold, political issues and public policy, elections, candidates, and the influencers of politics. Ballotpedia uses Institute data in thousand of candidate and election articles.
National and state groups use Institute data for their policy analyses. Publications range from tobacco company giving to privatization of prisons to banking regulations. See further use of Institute data here.
Common Cause, "Pay to Play": "Maryland is one of the top states for campaign donations by the bail bonds industry, ranking third behind only California and Florida, according to data from FollowtheMoney.org. In fact, when analyzing donations to individual candidates, our two largest recipients of bail bonds donations, Senator Bobby Zirkin and Delegate Joseph Vallario, are the second- and third-highest recipients in the United States."
Campaign Finance Institute, "Predicting the Impact of Democracy Vouchers: Analysis and Questions in Light of South Dakota’s Successful Initiative": "The voters of South Dakota in November 2016 decided, by initiative, to enact the nation’s first statewide voucher-based system of public campaign financing...[This] report makes predictions and raises questions about how the new law is likely to work out in practice. In addition to serving as a first review of one state’s innovation, the exercise is meant to serve as a basis for thinking about vouchers, small donor matching funds, and similar initiatives elsewhere."
Brennan Center for Justice, "Secret Spending in the States": "Dark money spending — together with a new phenomenon we've identified as "gray money" — have surged in state and local elections. This report, the most comprehensive empirical look yet at the impact of secret spending beyond the federal level, finds that fully transparent spending has declined from 76 percent in 2006 to just 29 percent in 2014 in six states where data was available."
How have you used our data? Please tell us about it.

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