ProPublica/Sunlight Foundation: House Office Expenditure Data

Members of the House of Representatives get an annual budget for their Washington and district offices, but how they spend it is up to them. There are some rules: It can’t be used for personal or campaign expenses, and there is no reserve source of money if lawmakers spend all of their allowances.

Lawmakers also are required to report the recipients of their office spending, and since 2009 the Sunlight Foundation has been taking the PDF files published by the House and converting them into text files useful for analysis and research. ProPublica has taken over both the collection and hosting of these files. They can be examined using spreadsheet or database software. You can download the files from this page.

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