MERRILL LYNCH

What this Merrill Lynch × 2014 join shows

LobbyVault stores employer/industry groupings on one axis and election cycles on the other. The 2014 cell for Merrill Lynch is the overlap: every itemized individual contribution in that cycle whose employer field rolled up to the Merrill Lynch grouping. The $1,276,887 cycle total is the headline of that overlap. It is not an official company disbursement, and it does not say which candidates or parties received the money. It also does not include independent expenditures or transfers between committees, which live in other FEC tables.

The same grouping, summed across every cycle in the LobbyVault table, comes to $23,982,707. The 2014 slice is about 5.3% of that running total. A midterm cycle that accounts for roughly a twentieth of an employer’s recorded history is a real cell, but it is not the whole story of the label. Readers who want the unfiltered employer hub or the unfiltered 2014 cycle hub should leave this join and open those pages rather than infer missing years from this one window.

The Merrill Lynch employer grouping

On FEC Form 3 schedules, occupation and employer are self-reported strings. Filers type what they type. LobbyVault’s Merrill Lynch grouping collects those strings that match the firm’s name variants. It is not a Department of Labor industry code, and it is not proof that Merrill Lynch the corporation directed the gifts. Individuals employed by, retired from, or otherwise associated with the name can appear in the same bucket.

Because the grouping is a text match, related wealth-management or Bank of America successor labels may sit in neighboring industry pages. This join does not merge those neighbors. It only reports what the Merrill Lynch key recorded in 2014. If a filer wrote a parent-company name, a wealth-management division, or a misspelling, that row belongs on a different key even if the person worked at the same desk.

Treat the $23,982,707 all-cycle figure as the running sum for this key alone. It is useful as a denominator for the 5.3% share, and it is misleading if used as a valuation of the firm or as proof of a multi-year political program. Neighboring keys have their own denominators and are not subtracted from or added to this one.

Questions

How much did Merrill Lynch donors give in the 2014 FEC cycle?

FEC.gov aggregates in LobbyVault show $1,276,887 in itemized individual contributions for the Merrill Lynch employer grouping during the 2014 cycle. That sum covers 1,056 contributions from 399 donors. It is not a Merrill Lynch PAC total and not a company treasury figure.

What share of all Merrill Lynch FEC money is the 2014 cycle?

The Merrill Lynch grouping’s all-cycle total in this table is $23,982,707. The 2014 cell of $1,276,887 is about 5.3% of that running total. Other cycles make up the rest; this page does not list them.

Does this mean Merrill Lynch the company donated $1,276,887?

No. The amount is the sum of itemized individual contributions whose employer field matched the Merrill Lynch grouping. FEC employer text is self-reported. The join does not identify corporate treasury gifts or a firm committee.

Where can I see Merrill Lynch or 2014 without the other filter?

Open the Merrill Lynch industry hub for every cycle under that employer string, or the 2014 election cycle hub for the period without the Merrill Lynch filter. The overlay table for this exact join is the Merrill Lynch 2014 cycle page.