Expenditures by Candidates and Political Committees

Description:

This dataset contains expenditures made by Washington State Candidates and Political Committees for the last 10 years as reported to the PDC on forms C3, C4, Schedule C and their electronic filing equivalents.


In-kind contributions are included in this data set as they are considered as both a contribution and expenditure. In-kind contributions are also included in the data set "Contributions to Candidates and Political Committees"


For candidates, the number of years is determined by the year of the election, not necessarily the year the expenditure was reported. For political committees, the number of years is determined by the calendar year of the reporting period.


Candidates and political committees choosing to file under "mini reporting" are not included in this dataset. See WAC 390-16-105 for information regarding eligibility.


This dataset is a best-effort by the PDC to provide a complete set of records as described herewith and may contain incomplete or incorrect information. The PDC provides access to the original reports for the purpose of record verification.


Descriptions attached to this dataset do not constitute legal definitions; please consult RCW 42.17A and WAC Title 390 for legal definitions and additional information regarding political finance disclosure requirements.


CONDITION OF RELEASE: This publication constitutes a list of individuals prepared by the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission and may not be used for commercial purposes. This list is provided on the condition and with the understanding that the persons receiving it agree to this statutorily imposed limitation on its use. See

RCW 42.56.070(9) and AGO 1975 No. 15.


Last Updated:
Field Name Data Type Description
amount number The amount of the expenditure or in-kind contribution. In-kind contributions are both a contribution and an expenditure and represented in both the contributions and expenditures data.
ballot_number text If the committee is a Statewide Ballot Initiative Committee a ballot number will appear once a ballot number is assigned by the Secretary of State. Local Ballot Initiatives will not have a ballot number. This field will contain a number only if the Secretary of State issues a number.
code text The type of expenditure. The values displayed are human readable equivalents of the type codes reported on the form C4 schedule A. Please refer to the form for a listing of all codes. Itemized expenditures are generally required to have either a code or a description but may be required to have both. Non-itemized expenditures do not have a description.
committee_id text The unique identifier of a committee. For a continuing committee, this id will be the same for all the years that the committee is registered. Single year committees and candidate committees will have a unique id for each year even though the candidate or committee organization might be the same across years. Surplus accounts will have a single committee id across all years.
creditor text The creditor is the person, vendor or entity to whom the campaign debt is owed.
description text The reported description of the transaction. Non-itemized expenditures will not contain a description.
election_year number The election year in the case of candidates and single election committees. The reporting year in the case of continuing political committees.
expenditure_date calendar_date The date that the expenditure was made or the in-kind contribution was received. See the metadata for the origin and amount field regarding in-kind contributions.
filer_id text The unique id assigned to a candidate or political committee. The filer id is consistent across election years with the exception that an individual running for a second office in the same election year will receive a second filer id. There is no correlation between the two filer ids. For a candidate and single-election-year committee such as a ballot committee, the combination of filer_id and election_year uniquely identifies a campaign.
filer_name text The candidate or committee name as reported on the form C1 candidate or committee registration form. The name will be consistent across all records for the same filer id and election year but may differ across years due to candidates or committees changing their name.
for_or_against text Ballot initiative committees are formed to either support or oppose an initiative. This field represents whether a committee “Supports” or “Opposes” a ballot initiative.
id text PDC internal identifier that corresponds to a single expenditure record. When combined with the origin value, this number uniquely identifies a single row.
itemized_or_non_itemized text A record for an itemized expenditure represents a single expenditure. A record for a non-itemized expenditure represents one or more expenditures where the individual expenditures are less than the limit for itemized reporting. In this case the record is the aggregate total for the reporting period.
jurisdiction text The political jurisdiction associated with the office of a candidate.
jurisdiction_county text The county associated with the jurisdiction of a candidate. Multi-county jurisdictions as reported as the primary county. This field will be empty for political committees and when a candidate jurisdiction is statewide.
jurisdiction_type text The type of jurisdiction this office is: Statewide, Local, etc.
legislative_district text The Washington State legislative district. This field only applies to candidates where the office is "state senator" or "state representative."
office text The office sought by the candidate. Does not apply to political committees.
origin text This field shows from which filed report-type the data originates. A/LE50 refers to non-itemized expenditures of $200 and less per expenditure. A/GT50 refers to itemized expenditures greater than $200 per expenditure. A/LE50 and A/GT50 are both reported on schedule A of form C4. As part of inflationary rule changes the dollar amount increased on April 1, 2023 from $50 and less per expenditure to $200 and less per expenditure.
party text The political party as declared by the candidate or committee on their form C1 registration. Contains only "Major parties" as recognized by Washington State law.
payee text A campaign may reimburse a person or entity for expenses they occurred on behalf of the campaign. In those cases, the subcontractor or business that provided the products or services will appear as the recipient and the person or entity who was paid or reimbursed for procuring the services or products is the payee.
position text The position associated with an office. This field typically applies to judicial and local office that have multiple positions or seats. This field does not apply to political committees.
recipient_address text The street address of the individual or vendor paid as reported. Please refer to the recipient_name field for more information regarding address fields.
recipient_city text The city of the individual or vendor paid as reported. Please refer to the recipient_name field for more information regarding address fields.
recipient_location point The geocoded location of the individual or vendor paid as reported. The quality of the geocoded location is dependent on how many of the address fields are available and is calculated using a third-party service. The PDC has not verified the results of the geocoding. Please refer to the recipient_name field for more information regarding address fields.
recipient_name text The name of the individual or vendor paid as reported. The names appearing here have not been normalized and the same entity may be represented by different names in the dataset. Non-itemized expenditures of $200 or less will have a recepient_name of EXPENSES OF $200 OR LESS and origin of A/LE50, and all address fields will be empty. As part of inflationary rule changes the dollar amount increased on April 1, 2023 from $50 or less to $200 or less.
recipient_state text The state of the individual or vendor paid as reported. Please refer to the recipient_name field for more information regarding address fields.
recipient_zip text The zip code of the individual or vendor paid as reported. Please refer to the recipient_name field for more information regarding address fields.
report_number text PDC identifier used for tracking the individual form C4 . Multiple expenditures will have the same report number when they were reported to the PDC at the same time. The report number is unique to the report it represents. When a report is amended, a new report number is assigned that supersedes the original version and the original report records are not included in this dataset.
type text Indicates if this record is for a candidate or a political committee. In the case of a political committee, it may be either a continuing political committee, party committee or single election year committee.
url url A link to a PDF version of the original report as it was filed to the PDC.