What government affairs donors give in federal races

A $476 mean on a two-word field label

$8,440,747, 17,735 itemizations, and 947 donor records are the occupation-level facts. Mean contribution size is about $476. Mean dollars per donor record are about $8,913. Repeat giving is about 19 itemizations per donor record.

17,735 lines from 947 records is a mid-volume advocacy-field stack with a smaller donor-record pool than many workplace titles. The $476 per-line mean sits near other professional field labels, not with high-repeat status keys that post many small gifts.

The packet has no LDA-registration field, no employer, and no median gift. A few large itemizations can lift the average.

GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS versus GOVERNMENT RELATIONS and LOBBYIST

The FEC record does not verify that the donor is a registered lobbyist. In-house government-affairs staff, consultants, association employees, and people describing a policy shop can all type the field phrase. Best-efforts rules do not force a controlled vocabulary.

This page cites only $8,440,747, 17,735 contributions, and 947 donors. GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, LOBBYIST, and PUBLIC AFFAIRS remain other keys unless the bulk extract merged them.

947 donor records and overlapping advocacy titles

947 donor records used GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS on at least one matching itemization. Address variants split records. A person who listed GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS on some gifts and LOBBYIST or GOVERNMENT RELATIONS on others will appear in both occupation totals for those lines.

Occupation is stored per transaction. LobbyVault does not infer party from the field phrase.

Do not add this total to an industry page

Industry pages group employers. GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS as occupation is the donor’s job-field text, not the employer-industry code. Adding $8,440,747 to an industry total double-counts.

Open the GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS occupation page for rows. Use the occupations index to place the phrase next to LOBBYIST and GOVERNMENT RELATIONS without merging them.

Citation language for Form 3/3X

A usable sentence is: occupation equals GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, dollars equal $8,440,747, contributions equal 17,735, donors equal 947, sourced from FEC Form 3/3X itemizations indexed on LobbyVault.

Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code. Quote the three facts together so the $476 mean and the 19-line repeat ratio are visible next to the headline dollars.

What the government-affairs extract covers

GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS in this extract is $8,440,747 on 17,735 itemizations from 947 donor records, or $8.4 million in compact millions. Those dollars are itemized activity on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules indexed on LobbyVault from FEC.gov bulk data. Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code, so they never enter the total. Refunds and memo entries follow FEC presentation in the underlying schedules. People who type lobbyist, government relations, or public affairs may sit on other occupation pages. Only the exact GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS key is in $8,440,747.

Arithmetic means on this key are about $476 per contribution and about $8,913 per donor record, with roughly 19 itemizations per donor record. Means are not medians. The packet has no gift-size distribution and no party split. Combining GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS with GOVERNMENT RELATIONS or LOBBYIST without naming each source total changes the unit from one FEC string to a homemade cluster. 947 donor records on 17,735 lines is a mid-volume field-label pool, not an LDA registration census.

Industry pages group employer-side categories and should not be added to $8,440,747. A person who listed GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS on some gifts and a neighboring title on others will appear in both occupation totals for the respective lines. A public-record citation that stays inside the packet is: occupation equals GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, dollars equal $8,440,747, contributions equal 17,735, donors equal 947. Candidate and committee pages hold the recipient side. Harvested facts have no cycle year; live hub filters may change displayed sums.

947 is a smaller donor-record pool than many workplace titles at a similar dollar band. About 19 itemizations per donor record is a mid-repeat ratio on this exact string, not an LDA filing cadence. Do not treat $8,913 per donor record as a typical government-affairs salary diverted to politics; it is $8,440,747 divided by 947 records.

Compact millions ($8.4 million) are the same headline amount as $8,440,747, rounded to one decimal place. In-house staff and outside consultants share this key when they typed GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS. The occupations index is the place to keep GOVERNMENT RELATIONS and LOBBYIST on separate lines. Quote the exact phrase, then the three facts, and stop. LobbyVault does not infer motive from the occupation column.

Questions

How much have government-affairs occupation donors given in FEC data?

The GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS occupation string is attached to $8,440,747 across 17,735 contributions and 947 donor records in LobbyVault’s FEC bulk index. The figure is itemized occupation money, not a census of registered lobbyists. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.

Does GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS include GOVERNMENT RELATIONS or lobbyist filings?

Only if the bulk extract normalized those strings to this phrase. Otherwise they are separate keys. This page covers GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS: $8,440,747, 17,735 contributions, and 947 donors. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.

What is the average government-affairs contribution?

Dividing $8,440,747 by 17,735 itemizations yields about $476 per contribution. Dividing by 947 donors yields about $8,913 per donor record. Both are means, not medians. Repeat giving is about 19 itemizations per donor record. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.

Does listing government affairs prove LDA registration?

No. Occupation is self-reported free text. The FEC record does not verify lobbyist registration. Quote 17,735 contributions and 947 donor records with the $8,440,747 total. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.