# LA City Lobbying Disclosures - Firms, Clients, Payments (`j0401/la-city-lobbying`) Actor

LA City Ethics Commission lobbying disclosures in four datasets: registered lobbyists, client registrations, quarterly client payments and project/agency lobbying rows. Filter by year, quarter, firm, client, agency, project or amount; join on firmKey/clientKey or aggregate by firm, client or agency.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/j0401/la-city-lobbying.md
- **Developed by:** [Wenhao Yang](https://apify.com/j0401) (community)
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.03 / 1,000 la lobbying records

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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

## LA City Lobbying Disclosures - Firms, Clients, Payments

Every lobbying disclosure filed with the City of Los Angeles Ethics Commission, in four linked datasets - **508,882 records**:

| `corpus` | Records | Grain |
|---|---|---|
| `activities` | 269,146 | one client-quarter-project, with the city agencies lobbied |
| `payments` | 198,238 | one client-quarter payment to a firm |
| `clients` | 30,696 | one client registration at a firm |
| `lobbyists` | 10,802 | one registered lobbyist at a firm, per year |

Counts measured 2026-10-21. Payments reported for 2024 total **$75.8 million** across 22,104 rows.

### Low cost

**From $0.00005 per record, down to $0.00003 at Gold**

Pay only for the records you receive. A 50-record search costs $0.0025 at the entry tier.

### Search

```json
{
  "corpus": "payments",
  "year": "2024",
  "quarter": "4",
  "firm": "Englander",
  "minAmount": 10000,
  "maxResults": 500
}
```

Filters: `year`, `quarter` (payments and activities), `firm`, `client`, `lobbyist` (lobbyists), `city` and `state` (lobbyists and clients), `agency`, `project` and `referenceNumber` (activities), `dateFrom` / `dateTo` (registration dates), `minAmount` / `maxAmount` (payments). Name filters are case-insensitive substrings. A filter the dataset does not carry is rejected, never silently dropped.

```json
{
  "corpus": "activities",
  "year": "2025",
  "agency": "Planning",
  "maxResults": 200
}
```

### Aggregate

```json
{
  "corpus": "payments",
  "year": "2024",
  "mode": "aggregate",
  "groupBy": "firm"
}
```

One row per group with `groupCount` and `totalMatched`. Dimensions: `year`, `quarter`, `firm`, `client`, `lobbyist`, `city`, `state` and `agency`.

`agency` splits the pipe-delimited agency list, so agency counts add up to more than the row count (one activity can lobby several agencies). A rollup above 5,000 groups fails loudly. Client and lobbyist rollups are counted in process, so keep a year (or firm) filter on the 198k-row payments table: a single year stays well under the limit, while all years together for `client` currently exceed it.

### Joining the tables

There is no shared identifier. The tables join on **firm name plus client name**. Search rows carry `firmKey` and `clientKey` - lowercased, punctuation and ampersands folded, whitespace collapsed - so the four datasets can be joined without re-cleaning names. Aggregate rows fill the key when the group is a firm or a client. Firm-name coverage measured 2026-10-21: 99.8-99.9% of payments, activities and client rows match a firm in the lobbyist register.

### Data notes

- **City-level disclosure, not federal LDA.** Current tools cover federal lobbying; this is Los Angeles City Hall - the mayor, city council, and every city department.
- `client_last_name` often holds a company's full name when no individual first name was filed; `clientName` assembles whichever parts the filer supplied.
- Payment amounts are as reported; a large share of payment rows have no amount filed and are delivered with `amount` empty rather than zero.
- Each record carries a link to the filed registration form or quarterly report at `ethics.lacity.org`.

# Actor input Schema

## `corpus` (type: `string`):

lobbyists = registered lobbyists at each firm; clients = clients of registered firms; payments = client payments to firms by quarter; activities = projects and city agencies lobbied by quarter.

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

search = matching records. aggregate = one row per group. Leave blank: aggregate when groupBy is set, otherwise search.

## `groupBy` (type: `string`):

Dimension for mode=aggregate. Availability depends on the dataset. agency separates the pipe-delimited agency list, so group counts add up to more than the row count.

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

Records to deliver in search mode (default 50, max 25000).

## `year` (type: `string`):

Registration year (lobbyists, clients) or report year (payments, activities), e.g. "2024".

## `quarter` (type: `string`):

Report quarter, payments and activities only.

## `firm` (type: `string`):

Case-insensitive substring of the lobbying firm name, e.g. "Englander".

## `client` (type: `string`):

Case-insensitive substring of the client's first or last name field.

## `lobbyist` (type: `string`):

Case-insensitive substring of the lobbyist's first or last name. Lobbyists dataset only.

## `city` (type: `string`):

Lobbyist city (lobbyists) or client city (clients).

## `state` (type: `string`):

Two-letter state of the lobbyist (lobbyists) or client (clients).

## `agency` (type: `string`):

Case-insensitive substring of a city agency name, e.g. "Planning". Activities and clients.

## `project` (type: `string`):

Case-insensitive substring of the project description. Activities only.

## `referenceNumber` (type: `string`):

Case, council file or contract reference number. Activities only.

## `dateFrom` (type: `string`):

Registration date start, YYYY-MM-DD (lobbyists and clients only).

## `dateTo` (type: `string`):

Registration date end, YYYY-MM-DD (lobbyists and clients only).

## `minAmount` (type: `number`):

Minimum payment in dollars (0 = no minimum). Payments only.

## `maxAmount` (type: `number`):

Maximum payment in dollars (0 = no maximum). Payments only.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "corpus": "payments",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "year": "2024",
  "minAmount": 0,
  "maxAmount": 0
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `recordsUrl` (type: `string`):

LA City lobbying records or aggregate rows - as JSON

## `datasetUrl` (type: `string`):

No description

## `runUrl` (type: `string`):

No description

# 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 = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("j0401/la-city-lobbying").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 = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("j0401/la-city-lobbying").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 '{}' |
apify call j0401/la-city-lobbying --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,j0401/la-city-lobbying"
        }
    }
}
```

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/37QdDyHW3dnnfK5Q2/builds/KHbj03I4oUEo7m8Ln/openapi.json