@pipeworx/open-fec

Connect: https://gateway.pipeworx.io/open-fec/mcp · Install: one-click buttons

Tools: 3

The Federal Election Commission’s openFEC API. All federal campaign finance data: candidates (presidential, congressional), committees (campaign, PAC, super PAC, party), individual contributions, expenditures, independent expenditures, debt. Free, requires a free API key.

Why this matters for AI agents

For political research, lobbying-spend analysis, or “where does this PAC’s money go?” questions, OpenFEC is the canonical source. Government-mandated reporting; what’s publicly disclosed flows here. Pair with the Lobbying Activity recipe for full political-footprint mapping.

Common flows:

• Candidate / committee lookup. “Find committees associated with a candidate” → search by name.
• Contribution patterns. “Who contributed to this PAC?” → committee contribution detail.
• Where the money went. “What did this committee spend on?” → committee disbursement detail.
• Independent expenditures. “Who’s spending against this candidate?” → IE search.

Auth

Free key from https://api.open.fec.gov/developers/. Pass via _apiKey. Rate-limited; the key gives generous limits.

Committee types

For corporate / executive political activity, you typically care about the corporate PAC (regular) and any associated super PACs.

Reporting cycles

Federal campaign finance is reported by cycle: Jan 1 of year T to Dec 31 of T+1 for two-year cycles (House: every 2yr, Senate: every 6yr). Filings are quarterly during election years, semi-annually in off-years.

Common pitfalls

• Itemization thresholds. Individual contributions <$200 don’t have to be itemized — only the aggregate appears. So “who contributed to X?” misses small donors.
• Bundling. A single donor can contribute to many committees, often via “bundlers.” OpenFEC has individual contributions; bundling relationships are inferred, not reported.
• Soft money / 527s / dark money. OpenFEC doesn’t have 501(c)(4) social welfare orgs that engage in political activity. For those, IRS Form 990 (separate pack: propublica-nonprofit) is the closest analog.
• Super PAC coordination is restricted, not eliminated. Super PACs report all activity but can’t legally coordinate with candidates. In practice, “single-candidate super PAC” is a common pattern that’s technically arms-length.
• Candidate vs. committee. A candidate has a candidate ID (Cxxxxxxxx); their authorized committee has a separate committee ID. Same-name searches need disambiguation.
• Cycle alignment for lookups. Searching for activity in 2023 alone misses things — most reports cover the full 2023-2024 cycle. Filter by cycle, not by year.

Tools

• search_candidates — Search federal election candidates by name, state, or party. Returns candidate ID, name, party, office, state, district, and election years. Example: search_candidates(“Biden”, state=“DE”, party=“DEM”
• candidate_financials — Get campaign finance summary for a candidate by their FEC candidate ID (e.g., “P80001571”). Returns total receipts, disbursements, cash on hand, individual contributions, PAC contributions, and loans.
• search_committees — Search political committees (PACs, Super PACs, party committees) by name. Returns committee ID, name, type, designation, party, treasurer, and associated candidates. Example: search_committees(“ActBlu