US Senate LDA Lobbying Filings Scraper

US Senate LDA Lobbying Filings Scraper

Scrape lobbying disclosure filings from the US Senate LDA database, filtered by year, registrant, or client name. Each filing includes the lobbying firm, client, issue codes, and reported income. No API key or registration required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The Senate's Lobbying Disclosure Act database is the authoritative source for who is lobbying whom on Capitol Hill, but its web interface makes bulk analysis tedious. This Actor reads the public filings directly, letting you filter by filing year, registrant name, or client name, and returns each match in one consistent schema. No API key, no registration, no rate-limit headaches.

Who uses it	What they scrape US Senate LDA Filings for
Investigative journalists	Mapping which lobbying firms are active on a specific bill or policy area.
Compliance officers	Auditing whether a firm's disclosed lobbying activity matches public records.
Political researchers	Tracking year-over-year lobbying spend by industry or corporation.
NGO watchdogs	Identifying undisclosed relationships between lobbyists and government officials.

What it does

This Actor collects US Senate LDA lobbying filings by year, registrant, or client name and returns each one as a flat row.

• 📋 Year filter: Narrow results to a single filing year, such as 2024, or leave blank to pull all available years.
• 🏢 Registrant search: Filter by the lobbying firm's name using a substring match, so 'Strategies' catches 'Smith Strategies LLC'.
• 🏛️ Client search: Filter by the entity being lobbied for, such as a corporation or trade association name.
• 🔢 Volume control: Set a hard cap on the number of filings per run, from a single test record up to one million.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with US Senate LDA Filings data

📈 Track lobbying spend by industry.

A policy analyst pulls all 2024 filings for a set of pharmaceutical clients to compare reported lobbying income against public statements.

🔍 Investigate a specific firm.

A reporter searches for a lobbying firm by name across multiple years to build a timeline of its clients and issue areas.

📊 Monitor year-over-year trends.

A watchdog group collects all filings from the last five years to measure how lobbying activity shifts after an election cycle.

📋 Audit compliance.

A compliance team pulls filings for their own organization to verify that disclosed lobbying activity matches internal records.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	Reads the public Senate LDA site directly with no registration or authentication.
Fixed schema	Every filing lands in your dataset with the same columns, ready for analysis.
Flexible filters	Combine year, registrant, and client filters to zero in on exactly the filings you need.
Bulk exports	Download results as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML for use in spreadsheets, databases, or scripts.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets US Senate LDA Filings the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	US Senate LDA Lobbying Filings Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When US Senate LDA Filings changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor with an optional filing year, registrant name substring, and client name substring, alone or together, and filters run as each filing is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
  "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.021 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$2.10
1,000 results	$21.00
10,000 results	$210.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the US Senate LDA Lobbying Filings Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to US Senate LDA Filings through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/us-senate-lda-filings-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your filters are not too restrictive. Try removing the filing year, registrant name, and client name filters one at a time to see which is eliminating all matches. Also confirm the Senate LDA site is reachable from your browser.

The run stopped before reaching my maxItems limit.

The Actor stops when there are no more filings matching your filters. If you set a high maxItems but got fewer results, it means the Senate database returned fewer matching records than your cap.

Some fields in my output are empty.

Not every LDA filing contains every data point. Fields like specific issue codes or income amounts are only populated when the filer provided them. Empty fields are expected and reflect the source data.

The Actor is running slowly.

The Senate LDA website can be slow under heavy load. If you are pulling a large number of filings, consider reducing maxItems or running during off-peak hours. The Actor respects the site's response time.

I got an error about the website being unreachable.

The Senate LDA site occasionally undergoes maintenance. Wait a few minutes and retry the run. If the problem persists for more than an hour, check the Apify status page or the Senate website directly.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What is an LDA filing?	An LDA filing is a quarterly disclosure report that lobbying firms and organizations must submit to the US Senate under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. It details who they lobbied for, which issues they worked on, and how much they were paid.
Do I need a Senate API key to use this Actor?	No. This Actor reads the public-facing Senate LDA website directly. You do not need to register for any API or provide credentials.
Can I filter by a specific lobbying issue or bill number?	The input schema supports filtering by filing year, registrant name, and client name. Issue codes and specific bill references appear in the output data fields, so you can filter those after export.
How many filings can I scrape in one run?	You set the maximum with the 'Maximum filings' input. The hard limit is one million per run, but you can set it as low as one for testing.
What years of data are available?	The Senate LDA database contains filings going back many years. Leave the filing year filter blank to pull all available years, or set a specific year like 2024.
Can I search for a client by partial name?	Yes. The client name filter is a substring match, so entering 'Exxon' will return filings for 'Exxon Mobil Corporation' and any other client containing that text.
What export formats are supported?	You can export your dataset as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML from the Apify platform after the run completes.
Is this Actor scraping the House LDA database too?	No. This Actor targets the US Senate LDA filings specifically. The House of Representatives maintains a separate lobbying disclosure system.
How often is the Senate LDA data updated?	Lobbying firms are required to file quarterly. This Actor reads whatever is currently public on the Senate site, so running it periodically will catch new filings as they appear.
Can I schedule this Actor to run automatically?	Yes. Apify supports scheduled runs. You can set this Actor to run daily, weekly, or monthly to collect new filings as they are published.

Related actors

Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by United States Senate. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.