Findings

Where members' own money meets the money around them: who pays for their campaigns, the stock they own in companies lobbying them, PAC and employee money from companies they own, and how their trades did against the market. Then how they file: late, on paper, or with dates that can't be right. From the FEC, the lobbying reports and every report on the House's disclosure site since January 2020. Each is a fact on the record; where chance alone would give as much, the page says so.

Who pays for their campaigns

Serving members' campaigns, every two-year period loaded (FEC). Outside spending is money groups spent on ads for or against them without coordinating with the campaign; for a challenger it can dwarf what the campaign raised.

Outside spending for and against them

• Against them
• For them

Their own money

What candidates put into their own campaigns, as contributions or loans.

Money from outside their state

The share of their itemized individual contributions (over $200 from one person) from donors outside the state they represent, in their latest period; members who raised at least $1M then.

Money from PACs

The share of everything they raised that came from political action committees, all periods; members who raised at least $1M.

Former staff now lobbying

Lobbyists who list a job with the member on their lobbying reports (LD-2), and what registered lobbyists report giving or raising for the member (LD-203).

Stock in companies lobbying their committees

Stock on a serving member's latest annual report in a company that, this Congress, lobbied the House on a bill sent to a committee they sit on: 2,559 holdings by 134 members. Theirs, a spouse's or a dependent child's; matched by ticker and the company's name on its lobbying reports.

Against chance: the same holdings, scored against every other member's committees instead, match about 2640 (95% of the time 2487–2809): 2,559 is about what chance gives. Big companies lobby most committees, so owning them means owning companies that lobby yours.