Senate LD — Lobbying Disclosure (LD-1 / LD-2)

1. Summary

The Senate Office of Public Records publishes lobbying disclosures under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (LDA, as amended by HLOGA 2007). LD-1 is registration of a new client-lobbyist relationship; LD-2 is the quarterly activity report.

2. Access Methods

API: https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/ (no auth required for read-only)
Bulk download: https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/filings/?format=csv (paginated)
Auth: Token required for >120 req/hour — register at https://lda.senate.gov/api/auth/register/
Rate limit: 120 req/hour unauthenticated, 1,200 req/hour authenticated

3. Data Schema

Key fields emitted by fetch_senate_ld.py:

Column	Type	Description
`filing_uuid`	str	Unique filing ID
`filing_type`	str	LD-1, LD-2, LD-203, etc.
`filing_year`	int	Year
`filing_period`	str	Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4 or annual
`registrant_name`	str	Lobbying firm or organization
`registrant_id`	str	Senate-assigned registrant ID
`client_name`	str	Client being represented
`client_id`	str	Senate-assigned client ID
`client_general_description`	str	Client industry / business
`income`	float	LD-2 income from client this quarter (USD)
`expenses`	float	LD-2 expenses (in-house lobbying)
`lobbyists`	str	Semicolon-separated lobbyist names
`issues`	str	Semicolon-separated issue areas
`government_entities`	str	Agencies/chambers contacted
`filing_date`	str	YYYY-MM-DD

4. Coverage

US federal lobbying only (state lobbying handled by individual state ethics offices)
1999 → present (full electronic coverage from 2008)
Quarterly reporting cycle (LD-2)
~1M+ filings cumulative

5. Cross-Reference Potential

USAspending ↔ client_name (clients lobbying for contracts)
SEC EDGAR ↔ client_name (public companies as lobbying clients)
OFAC SDN ↔ client_name (sanctions screening of lobbying clients)

Join key: normalized client_name. registrant_id and client_id are canonical when joining Senate-internal records.

6. Data Quality

Many lobbyist names appear in multiple registrants over time (job changes)
issues and government_entities are free-text — Inconsistent capitalization
Foreign agents register under FARA (Department of Justice), NOT here
Income/expenses are reported in $10,000 brackets in some older filings

7. Acquisition Script

Path: scripts/fetch_senate_ld.py

# By client
python3 SKILL_DIR/scripts/fetch_senate_ld.py --client "EXAMPLE CORP" \
    --year 2024 --out data/lobbying.csv

# By registrant (lobbying firm)
python3 SKILL_DIR/scripts/fetch_senate_ld.py --registrant "BIG K STREET LLP" \
    --year 2024 --out data/lobbying.csv

Set SENATE_LDA_TOKEN env var if you have one (or pass --token). Defaults to anonymous (120 req/hour).

8. Legal & Licensing

Public record under 2 U.S.C. § 1604 (LDA)
No commercial use restrictions
Reuse is unconditional — see Senate Public Records Office disclaimer

9. References

API docs: https://lda.senate.gov/api/redoc/v1/
LDA guidance: https://lobbyingdisclosure.house.gov/ld_guidance.pdf
Senate Public Records: https://lda.senate.gov/

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