Campaign Finance

Following the money

Campaign finance analysis at The Boston Tea is built entirely from public records: state filings with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) and federal filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). We describe what the records show and attach sources to factual claims. We do not characterize lawful giving as wrongdoing, and finance findings are review-gated before publication.

Live OCPF ingestion is pending. The framing below outlines the methodology; entity profiles appear as they are verified into the Reality Graph.

How we read the filings

Methodology

We start from primary sources: itemized contribution and expenditure filings published by OCPF and the FEC. Records are normalized into committees, donors, vendors, and consultants, then linked into the Boston Reality Graph so that relationships (who gave to whom, who was paid for what) can be examined consistently.

Aggregates are presented with their date ranges and source filings. Where a pattern is notable, we say what the records show and what they do not show. Contributing to a campaign is lawful civic participation; nothing here implies otherwise absent specific, sourced findings.

Registered committees

Political action committees

Scope

What we track

Donors

Individuals and entities contributing to Boston candidates and committees.

PACs

Political action committees active in local races.

Committees

Candidate and ballot-question committees registered with OCPF.

Vendors

Firms paid by campaigns for services, media, and consulting.

Consultants

Strategists and agencies retained across multiple campaigns.

Lobbying

Registered lobbying activity intersecting with city decisions.