Tag: Web portal

For New Mexico voters, the primary sources of campaign finance data are the websites of the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office and the Federal Election Commission. And at the federal level, there are also reports filed by broadcasters with the Federal Communications Commission that show who is buying airtime for television ads. Called NAB reports, which stands for National Association of Broadcasters, these are often the first sign one has of a group planning to spend money in an election. But searching those filings on the FCC site is onerous. The Center for Responsive Politics, at opensecrets.org, has pulled all the reports filed by New Mexico broadcasters into a user-friendly portal. The group also has included a list of the most recent organizations that have gained nonprofit status with the IRS. It’s a little arcane. But if you ever wanted to, along with reporters, research who is spending how much on television ad buys, this portal makes it a lot easier. New Mexico In Depth’s Openness Project provides a similar service for state-level campaign finance and lobbyist data, pulled from the secretary of state’s website. Another website doing similar state-level work is a project of the National Institute on Money in Politics, followthemoney.org.