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Published by Communications on April 13, 2009 12:24 PM

Award-winning website from the Center for Responsive Politics now provides 20 years of downloadable money-in-politics data--for free

WASHINGTON -- Politicians, prepare yourselves. Lobbyists, look out. Today the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics is putting 200 million data records from the watchdog group's archive directly into the hands of citizens, activists, journalists and anyone else interested in following the money in U.S. politics.

For the first time in CRP's 26-year history, the nonprofit research group's most popular data archives are fully and freely downloadable for non-commercial purposes from the Center's website, OpenSecrets.org--a four-time Webby winner for best politics site online. OpenSecrets.org will remain the go-to independent source for most users interested in tracking money's political influence and, in fact, the site has some new general-interest features as of today. (More on those below.)

With today's announcement, skilled data-divers can explore the information that's already aggregated on OpenSecrets.org to its full depth. Web developers and database experts can grab federal money-in-politics data that CRP's researchers have standardized and coded, and mash it up with other data sets. Timelines, charts, maps, other graphics and mobile applications are just some of the projects that could result--all powered by CRP's unparalleled data.

Read more.