Helena, Montana nonprofit keeping tabs for citizens – The National Institute for Money in State Politics

A nonprofit with a national profile that’s been headquartered in Helena for more than two decades just last month hung a sign for the first time outside its Last Chance Gulch offices. The political junkies among us are no doubt aware of the National Institute for Money in State Politics http://www.followthemoney.org/ , but the group’s website, and the exhaustive information compiled and sorted by the staff of 20, should be of interest to all of us.

In a visit with the IR’s editorial board, Ed Bender, the institute’s director, noted that for the 2010 election cycle, his staff compiled campaign finance data for more than 16,000 candidates for state office across the country, pulling into a database 3.7 million individual contributions that added up to more than $3 billion.

The group’s goal isn’t to draw conclusions, but rather to provide as much transparency and accountability as possible to the electoral process at the state level. The data can be parsed in countless ways, from seeing who gave to candidates in a certain district race to looking at where particular industries are concentrating their campaign spending to how more than 15,000 lobbyists and their clients support candidates.

Full Story: http://helenair.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_a9cc798a-55da-11e0-87e5-001cc4c03286.html