FEC Launches New Website
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) launched a new, dramatically different website this morning. (An archived copy of the FEC’s old website is available here.) We encourage you to explore the FEC’s new website at your convenience, but in the meantime wanted to make you aware of several major changes to how the FEC presents data on each committee’s profile page.
Accessing You Committee's Profile Page
To access your committee’s profile page, click on Campaign finance data at the top of the home page (Image 1). On the next screen, begin typing your committee’s name or committee ID number in the Search candidate and committee profiles box and select your committee from the automatically populated drop-down menu.
Image 1 (FEC Home Page)
Committee Profile Page Features
The committee profile page (Image 2) includes several familiar features accessible from a menu on the left: the Financial Summary tab provides an overview of the committee’s financial activity by election cycle; the About this Committee tab lists contact information for the committee; and the Filings tab provides links to the committee’s filed reports, RFAIs, and responses to RFAIs.
Image 2 (Overview of Committee Profile Page)
Locating Committee Filings
The Filings tab, in particular, includes several new features. Filings are now separately listed by the following categories: regularly filed reports (new reports, amended reports, RFAIs); 24- and 48-hour reports; statements of organization; and other documents (e.g., Form 99s, miscellaneous reports). (Hint: If you cannot find a filing, keep scrolling down.) Users can access a snapshot of each report (i.e., financial data pulled from the report’s summary page) by clicking the arrow button in the far-right column for the report (Image 3).
Image 3 (List of Reports in the Filings Tab)
Users also can search for specific filings by clicking the Filter this data button in the upper right-hand corner of each filing category. For example, to search for all RFAIs that your committee has received, click the Filter this data button for the Regularly filed reports category (Image 3). Next, on the far left side of the screen, expand the Filing information menu and then select Request for Additional Information (RFAI) (Image 4). All RFAIs sent to the committee during the selected election cycle will appear on the screen.
Image 4 (Detailed View of Data Filters on Filings Tab)
New Individual Contributions Dashboard
Rather than simply listing contributions, the Individual Contributions tab is a dashboard that allows user to examine the committee’s fundraising from different perspectives (Image 5). For example, the default view presents the total individual contributions by state that the committee has received. Users also can view the committee’s individual contributions by size, employer, or occupation. Clicking on a number in the Total contributed column will take users to a list of the individual transactions in that category.
Image 5 (Individual Contributions Dashboard)
Similar to the Individual Contributions tab, the Disbursements tab is a dashboard that allows users to examine the committee’s spending by recipient name or recipient committee ID number. The Independent Expenditures tab is simply a listing of any independent expenditures the committee has made during an election cycle.
Other Features
Although the FEC’s new website went live this morning, it is still a work in progress. For example, many materials in the Help for candidates and committees section of the website still link to the old website. The Legal resources global search feature also only supports basic search commands right now; users may conduct more targeted searches of advisory opinions, MURs, and rulemakings on the old website.
