LobbyView

LobbyView is a data and research platform focused on U.S. interest group politics and lobbying. It helps scholars, journalists, and citizens explore lobbying activity through a database containing more than one million lobbying reports. The site supports research and public inquiry with tools to search the database, access curated datasets, download data, and explore visualizations.

Its visualizations examine topics such as the movement of lobbyists between government and politics, comparisons between in-house lobbying and work conducted by K Street firms, and changes in lobbying spending and issue activity over time. LobbyView also highlights analytical opportunities for researchers, including text analysis of lobbying report content and network analysis of legislative bills that are lobbied.

The project describes its mission as advancing data science research in interest group politics and notes recognition as the winner of the IPES Best New Dataset award. Its work is supported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the National Science Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation.