openfec

What This Skill Does

The OpenFEC skill provides a robust interface for querying official campaign finance data directly from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) API. It allows OpenClaw agents to perform deep-dive research into political campaign financing, candidate records, committee structures, and detailed contribution or disbursement records. By leveraging this tool, you can programmatically track the flow of money in U.S. elections, identify individual donor patterns, monitor specific candidate financial health, and analyze committee expenditures. This skill acts as a bridge between raw government data and actionable insights for journalists, researchers, and political analysts.

Installation

To install this skill, use the ClawKit CLI within your OpenClaw environment. Run the command clawhub install openclaw/skills/skills/aiwithabidi/openfec. Once installed, ensure you have an active FEC API key. You can obtain one for free from the official FEC website. Configure your environment by setting the FEC_API_KEY variable in your OpenClaw settings to enable successful authentication with the FEC endpoints.

Use Cases

• Journalistic Investigation: Track large disbursements made by political action committees (PACs) to uncover potential conflicts of interest or specific spending patterns in local or national races.
• Political Strategy: Analyze the financial health of candidates by comparing their total receipts and disbursements across different election cycles to predict fundraising effectiveness.
• Research & Academia: Aggregate contribution data by state or contributor name to map donor demographics and financial influence across different party affiliations.
• Election Monitoring: Retrieve real-time election results and financial filing updates to stay ahead of breaking political news.

Example Prompts

1. "Look up all committees related to the '2024 Presidential' election cycle and provide a summary of their current financial totals."
2. "Find all contributions made by individuals in California that exceed $1,000 for the latest election cycle."
3. "Search for candidate John Doe, get their latest financial totals, and list their recent filings with the FEC."

Tips & Limitations

• Rate Limiting: Be aware that the FEC API has rate limits. Using DEMO_KEY is suitable for testing, but for high-volume data analysis, register for a dedicated production API key to avoid disruptions.
• Data Freshness: Filing data is dependent on when committees submit their reports to the FEC. Large batches of data may have a slight processing delay.
• Efficiency: When searching for contributions or disbursements, use specific filters like state or amount ranges to avoid returning excessively large JSON payloads that may hit the agent's token limits.