How to research candidates, elected officials, and government spending

The purpose of this blog entry is to show you where you can find information on campaign contributions to political candidates, elected officials, and government spending/budgets.  If you don’t live in Colorado, it’s still a good idea to read through the information I present on Colorado.  It offers the basic ideas on how you can research your own state/city/municipality, etc.

…you see i have this sinking feeling that when political candidates get elected with the campaign contributions of corporations/CEOs there might be an expectation to “return the favor”.         …just a suspicion.

…please forward this blog entry to teachers, state workers, city workers, or any type of government workers.  especially if said workers are union members and have to negotiate with their department heads and other government bureaucrats.

also please forward this blog entry to anyone in the community who wants to look up the financial information on their elected officials.  This is public information and can/should be freely used.  i encourage you to be creative…this blog has already shown you how to research information on corporate CEOs, no reason you can’t connect the dots for us.  : )

let’s begin.

Colorado’s elected officials and candidates

One of the most recognizable names in Colorado politics: [Denver] Mayor John Hickenlooper.

Hickenlooper, a Democrat, recently decided to run for governor.

Say we wanted information on campaign contributions to candidate Hickenlooper.

In general, you’d start by looking at the website of whatever government agency maintains information on the campaign contributions for the level of office a candidate is running for.  In this case, in Colorado, if we want information on gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper we would look at the Secretary of State’s (SOS) website.  …the governor’s office is the “executive body” of the state which means we need to look at the records held by a state agency.

If we wanted information for a federal-level official (e.g. McCain/Obama/Bush, Congressional representatives) we would use a federal agency.

We would specifically look at the part of the SOS’s website that concerns itself with campaign finance reports [please click here].

Click “search database”.

[NOTE: If you don’t know what government agency holds this information for the candidate you’re researching, it’s a good idea to google “campaign finance report” in combination with your state’s/city’s/county’s/district’s/etc name.]

So if researching Hickenlooper’s campaign contributions you’d start on this page [please click here].

…and click on “Candidate Search”.

Click here to get down to brass tacks.

I usually search by the candidate’s name or the committee name.  A committee is usually created by a candidate to serve as the organization or group of people in charge of reporting campaign contributions.  A committee’s name is usually something like: “Hickenlooper for Colorado” or something simple like that. Committees are also formed to fund ballot initiatives if you’re ever researching that.

Go ahead and type in the names of your house/senate district representatives, current candidates, past/present governors, etc.   If you need the names of your state legislators you can find those by clicking here.

next…

Government spending/budgets

If you want information relating to how any level of government spends its money, you definitely want to check out the government office(s) with the word(s) budget and finance and in it.  Nowadays you can find A LOT of information online.

So, for example, if you’re looking for information on how Boulder County uses its money you’d Google something like “boulder county budget office” and find this link.

If you wanted information on the budget for the Colorado Dept. of Education, you’d google something like “Colorado Department of Education budget” and find this link.  Denver Public Schools would have a separate budget office which you can see by clicking here.

You can find the Denver City Council’s budget office by clicking on this link.

If you wanted information on the US military budget you would google something like “US Department of Defense budget” and get this link.

As with corporate research, you always have more credibility when you’re using the official source.  In this case, it’s the department of government that maintains the type of information you’re looking for.  Don’t understand the financial lingo?  Get one of these books.

So we’ve found the types the sources that house information on budgets, spending, etc.

Now the job of a researcher to break it down, make sense of it for us and put it together in an interesting way.  For example: Is there a connection between campaign contributions and how our elected officials vote?  If so, what is that connection and who is involved?  How many years has this been the case?  At what cost to constituents?

I hope readers find this useful and that they watch their candidates and elected officials more closely with the information being provided.

In solidarity,

Ric Urrutia