LegiStorm Pro

The revolving door appears to have slowed as the election approaches.

In the past quarter, 84 people have moved through the revolving door from Capitol Hill to K Street or back during the past three months, according to LegiStorm's one-of-a-kind database of lobbying activity and congressional staff. This figure is down from both the previous quarter and the same period a year ago.

LegiStorm found 119 people who swung from Capitol Hill to K Street or back during the second quarter filing period. A year ago, the third quarter filing deadline found 130 people who had made the move - representing a 35 percent drop.

Since last September, parts of the site have been designated for our Pro users only - those who subscribe to our services. This past month, after much internal debate, we expanded our "pay wall" by instituting page view limits on much of the rest of the site that remains free.

Our pay wall is intended to allow LegiStorm to grow and continue providing the unique and high-quality information services that people have come to expect from us. We are a business and can't continue to operate while giving away our products to those who otherwise would and should purchase them. LegiStorm won't help anyone if we don't survive and thrive.

While we know people would love all information on our site to be free, the access limits we've put in place still allow members of the general public to get basic information they need at no cost while encouraging those with a professional need and the means to subscribe to do just that.

Financial disclosures were finally released this weekend for Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the last holdouts in the Senate in submitting annual disclosures that were due back in May.

Kerry and Paul were the only two senators without annual disclosures covering calendar year 2011. They were allowed a 90-day extension to the original deadline of May 15th by the Senate Ethics Committee but the Aug. 13 deadline came and went without the reports making it into the Senate's system. LegiStorm received the documents via mail over the weekend from the Office of Public Records.

LegiStorm maintains the only online database of financial disclosures for members of Congress and their staff. As new disclosures and amendments to past disclosures become available, LegiStorm will continue to add them to the site.

LegiStorm has launched a new product, PowerBrief, which provides customers with all the information LegiStorm has about a specific member of Congress or congressional staffer in one printable PDF document.

PowerBrief leverages LegiStorm's unparalleled knowledge about Washington's power players to provide users with intelligence not found anywhere else, allowing legislative affairs professionals, and advocates get prepared for working with Capitol Hill. PowerBrief offers all the information LegiStorm has about members and their staffers. Among the PowerBrief items:

• Biographical information, including birthplace, hometown, current city, and family.
• Educational history, including any fraternity or sorority memberships and notable accomplishments and activities.
• Contact information, with all social media links
• Employment history, including positions on and off Capitol Hill
• Lobbying records
• And much more... 

"I'm proud that LegiStorm has rapidly evolved into the leading provider of intelligence about the people who work on Capitol Hill," said Jock Friedly, LegiStorm's founder and president. "I can say with great confidence after extensive testing that our data is not only the most thorough - with a level of detail that is found absolutely nowhere else - but we are also the most accurate and up-to-date data source as well. And we're rapidly evolving our capabilities to provide even better coverage for our users."

The total amount of salaries earned by House of Representative staffers in the second quarter of 2012 was about $166 million, the lowest amount since the third quarter of 2008.

 The House released the salaries, covering the period from April 1 to June 30, yesterday. LegiStorm entered the data into our database and went through an extensive process of cleaning up the data, researching and matching records with our existing database. For the second straight data release, we were able to make the information available on our website the day after the release.

Total salary spending has trended down since Republicans took control of the House in 2011 and made cutting spending a priority. The decrease in salaries is a reflection of the cuts to the overall House expense budgets. Each member's expense allowance - which covers all official expenses, including salaries - was cut 6.5 percent in 2012, on the heels of a 5 percent cut in 2011.

Two senators still haven't filed their personal financial disclosures even though the final extended deadline has passed.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) were both granted extensions through Aug. 13, but the Senate Office of Public Records has still not received a filing from either lawmaker.

They are the only members of the Senate or House of Representatives left to file. The original deadline for the disclosures was May 15, but lawmakers could request up to 90 days of extensions. About 90 lawmakers requested at least some extension to the deadline, and all but Kerry and Paul filed by the final Aug. 13 extended deadline.

Powered by LegiStorm's congressional staff database with industry-leading accuracy and timeliness, the list-building capability brings users an affordable new solution for finding just the right decision makers to reach out to in Congress.

Newcomers to the site without a LegiStorm Pro subscription can build and download simple lists based on staffing within an office or a state delegation or those who cover a specific role or legislative issue within an office. Users are charged per downloaded contact.

Annual subscribers to LegiStorm Pro are treated to a whole new level of list-building capability, as well as 2000 free download credits. Subscribers can build lists based on multiple criteria, including more advanced options such as where the person went to college. The lists are highly configurable, with users being able to add or subtract anyone from the list as needed.

Besides launching powerful contact list-building and download capability, LegiStorm has introduced a signup on the site for a free one-month trial. Professionals serious about possibly subscribing to LegiStorm Pro can request a free trial.

With the introduction of the free trial, LegiStorm has terminated its 3-day "Express" subscription offering. Subscribers will still be able to sign up for monthly or annual subscriptions.

Monthly subscriptions can be purchased for as little as $89. Annual subscriptions start at $595.

The personal financial disclosures of members of Congress continue to trickle in two months after the initial deadline.

LegiStorm today added the annual financial disclsoures of nine House of Representatives members who had received extensions past the May 15 deadline. This leaves 41 representatives who received deadline extensions and have not yet filed the disclosures. Members of Congress were able to request extenstions of up to 90 days, giving them until mid-August to file.

The annual financial disclosures of Quico Canseco (R-Texas), John Conyers (D-Mich.), Bob Filner (D-Calif.), Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), David Rivera (R-Fla.), Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) and Allen West (R-Fla.) are now available on LegiStorm. They are the latest of 20 representatives who have filed their disclosures in the past month.

Men dominate in the ranks of the highest-paid staffers, especially in Republican offices, according to a new National Journal piece based on an analysis of salary and gender data that LegiStorm provided the publication.

While men on average earned more annually than women, "the salary divergence can be largely explained by the gender disparity in high-level congressional jobs--especially among Republicans," NJ notes. For example, among staffers holding the highest ranking staff position in a member office, chief-of-staff, LegiStorm's data revealed men occupy the chief-of-staff role in over 80 percent of GOP offices. For Democrats, males still held a solid majority of chief-of-staff positions, but in less pronounced numbers.

Meanwhile, the numbers show that men and women with the same job title make very similar salaries.