# Lobbying Monitor — LDA Filings, Clients & Lobbyists (`brick_joey_yto/lobbying-monitor`) Actor

Track federal lobbying filings via the official Senate LDA database — watch clients, firms and lobbyists for new registrations, quarterly reports and contributions. No login required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/brick\_joey\_yto/lobbying-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [William Billings](https://apify.com/brick_joey_yto) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, News, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$1.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Lobbying Monitor

Track **federal lobbying disclosures** from the official Senate Office of Public Records database (lda.gov) — who lobbies whom, on which issues, for how much. No PACER-style fees, no login, no API key.

Built for **monitoring**: watch a client company, lobbying firm or lobbyist and pull only filings posted since your last run.

### Modes

| Mode | What it returns |
|---|---|
| **Monitor filings** | New lobbying filings — registrations, quarterly reports (Q1–Q4), amendments, terminations. Client, lobbying firm, income/expenses, issues, lobbyists, covered positions, filing PDF |
| **Search clients** | Organizations that hire lobbyists — name, description, state/country, their lobbying firm, effective date |
| **Search lobbying firms** | Registrant firms — contact info, address, description, house registrant ID |
| **Search lobbyists** | Individual lobbyists — name, current firm |
| **Contribution reports** | LDA §203 filings — political contributions by lobbyists/firms: payee, honoree, amount, date |

### Example inputs

**Watch a company's lobbying activity** — schedule daily/weekly, get only new filings:

```json
{ "mode": "filings", "query": "Microsoft", "postedAfter": "2026-09-01" }
```

**A lobbying firm's full client activity**:

```json
{ "mode": "filings", "registrant": "Akin Gump", "year": 2026 }
```

**Q3 filings only**:

```json
{ "mode": "filings", "query": "Pfizer", "filingType": "Q3", "year": 2026 }
```

**Track lobbyist political contributions**:

```json
{ "mode": "contributions", "query": "Smith", "year": 2025 }
```

### Output fields

- **Filings**: `client`, `registrant`, `filingType`, `year`, `period`, `income`, `expenses`, `issues`, `issueDescriptions`, `lobbyists`, `coveredPositions` (revolving-door government roles), `governmentEntities`, `postedAt`, `documentUrl`
- **Clients**: `name`, `description`, `state`, `country`, `registrant`, `effectiveDate`
- **Registrants**: `name`, `description`, `contactName`, `contactTelephone`, `address`, `country`
- **Lobbyists**: `name`, `registrant`
- **Contributions**: `registrant`, `lobbyist`, `period`, `contributions[]` (`payee`, `honoree`, `amount`, `date`, `type`), `documentUrl`

### Who uses this

- **Public affairs / government relations** — monitor competitor clients and firm rosters
- **Hedge funds / research** — lobbying spend shifts signal regulatory risk and priorities
- **Journalists** — new registrations and revolving-door appointments break stories
- **Corporate strategy** — see which issues peers are lobbying and which firms they hire
- **Nonprofits / advocacy** — track industry lobbying on your issue area

### Scheduling

Filings post continuously (quarterly deadlines plus registrations/amendments year-round). Set an Apify schedule with `postedAfter` = last run date to emit only new filings — the classic alerting pattern.

### Honest notes

- Data is the official Senate LDA database — authoritative and complete for *federal* lobbying under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. State/local lobbying is out of scope.
- `income`/`expenses` appear on quarterly reports; registration filings report issues and lobbyists instead of dollar amounts.
- `coveredPositions` reveals lobbyists' prior government jobs — the revolving-door signal.
- Contribution reports: most filers attest "no contributions" (required filing regardless); rows with `contributions[]` populated are the ones with actual payments.

### Pricing

Pay per result — **$1.00 per 1,000 rows**, scaling down to **$0.40 per 1,000** at volume tiers. No per-run fee. Free Apify plan covers ~5,000 rows/month.

# Actor input Schema

## `mode` (type: `string`):

What to pull from the Senate LDA database

## `query` (type: `string`):

Client, firm or lobbyist name — e.g. 'Microsoft', 'Akin Gump', 'Smith'. In filings mode this filters by client name.

## `registrant` (type: `string`):

Filter filings/contributions by lobbying firm (registrant) name — e.g. 'Akin Gump Strauss'

## `filingType` (type: `string`):

Registration (RR), quarterly reports (Q1-Q4), termination (RT), amendments — leave empty for all

## `year` (type: `integer`):

Limit to filings for this year, e.g. 2026

## `period` (type: `string`):

Quarterly period — 'Q1', 'Q2', 'Q3', 'Q4', 'mid\_year' or 'year\_end' (contribution reports)

## `postedAfter` (type: `string`):

Only filings posted after this date (YYYY-MM-DD) — use for scheduled monitoring runs

## `postedBefore` (type: `string`):

Only filings posted before this date (YYYY-MM-DD)

## `orderBy` (type: `string`):

Sort order for results

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum rows to return

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Optional — not needed normally; useful if you hit lda.gov rate limits

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "filings",
  "orderBy": "relevance",
  "maxResults": 50
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Dataset containing lobbying disclosure records

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "mode": "filings",
    "query": "",
    "registrant": "",
    "filingType": "",
    "period": "",
    "postedAfter": "",
    "postedBefore": ""
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("brick_joey_yto/lobbying-monitor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "mode": "filings",
    "query": "",
    "registrant": "",
    "filingType": "",
    "period": "",
    "postedAfter": "",
    "postedBefore": "",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("brick_joey_yto/lobbying-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "mode": "filings",
  "query": "",
  "registrant": "",
  "filingType": "",
  "period": "",
  "postedAfter": "",
  "postedBefore": ""
}' |
apify call brick_joey_yto/lobbying-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,brick_joey_yto/lobbying-monitor"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/Eyuo07hYXJeNT2Gmh/builds/ASeVk3nNKt9rV2QZp/openapi.json