Record types

A record is one filer, organization, person, bill or measure as it appears in the public records. The published snapshot has these record types:

The kind value is how the type is written in the data files.

Legislation and lobbying

Bill

A bill in the California Legislature, identified by its session and number, such as AB 1018 in the 2025–26 session. Its details come from California Legislative Information: subject, author, status, stage and latest action.

A bill is connected to organizations by their recorded positions, and to the legislators who authored it. A bill has no filed dollar figure of its own: lobbying filings don't say how much money went to any one bill.

Organization

A company, trade association, nonprofit, union, government body or tribe that took a recorded position on a bill or appears in state lobbying records. Each organization carries a type assigned during import and, where known, its industries and the lobbying interests from its registration.

Lobbying firm

A firm registered in CAL-ACCESS to lobby for clients, with its filer ID and whether its registration is active. Firms are connected to the organizations they represent, the payments they received and the lobbyists affiliated with them.

Lobbyist

An individual registered lobbyist, connected to the firm they are registered with for the current session. A lobbyist's activity is not interchangeable with their firm's.

Campaign finance

Committee

A campaign committee that files with the California Secretary of State: a candidate's own committee, a committee formed around a ballot measure, or a general committee. Where the snapshot has the committee's latest campaign statement, the record carries its reported receipts for the calendar year, the date they run through, and its largest itemized givers, and its givers are drawn as records connected to it.

Committees are identified by filer ID where the filing gives one, so similarly named committees stay separate. A committee named in a filing without an ID is kept under the name it was filed as.

PAC

A committee whose filed name identifies it as a political action committee, for example by including “PAC”. PACs carry the same information as other committees.

Candidate

A person running for state office as named on campaign filings, with the office, district, jurisdiction and election date as filed. A candidate's money figures come from the committees whose filings name them.

When the same person also gives money, their giving appears on a separate donor record.

Ballot measure

A statewide ballot measure or proposed initiative named in campaign filings. Where a measure can be matched to the Secretary of State's voter guide, its official title, summary and fiscal impact are available. Matching rules are in Matching records across filings.

Individual donor

A person that a committee's campaign statement names as a contributor, with their city, employer and occupation as filed. Donors are kept by name together with employer, so two people with the same name can stay apart, and one person filed two ways can appear twice.

Organization donor

A business, union, association or other organization that a committee's campaign statement names as a contributor. An organization donor and a lobbying organization with a similar name are separate records.

Records the map adds

Legislator

A member of the Assembly or Senate who authored a bill on the map. The map adds the legislator from the bill's published author and connects them to the bill.

Itemized source

A giver named on a committee's campaign statement. A giver of $5,000 or more in all, across the map's committees, is a record of its own; those of $50,000 or more are drawn on the canvas and the rest are listed on their committees until opened. Every giver of $2,500 or more is in the donor index. Every itemized amount is already inside the receiving committee's receipts.

Other itemized givers

One record per committee standing for its itemized givers of under $5,000 each, with how many there are and their total; the largest 100 are listed on it. Its connection to the committee carries their total, which is already inside the committee's receipts.