The United States spent 3.15 billion dollars on lobbying in 2016. The trend of lobbying in the United States has only risen over the years. Lobbying is intended to give the stakeholders of certain policies a direct method of communicating with their representatives. The failing of this system is that it gives disproportionate amount of influence to those with more financial resources. This creates an undesirable scenario where those with more economic resources will pursue goals that reinforce their control over those resources, without regard for the well-being of others. An inquiry into the propensity of donations to effect voting record was done last semester (Fall 2017) in COSC 445, and it is being continued in an independent study project this fall.
On a high level our goal is to make operational the results of the independent study project by building an accessible web app. This app will pull from a database information about various legislators and their donation base, and allow users to make more informed decisions when evaluating the track record of their representatives.
- Andrey Karnauch
- Christopher Dean
- Kelsey Veca
- William Lifferth