/opensecrets/pacs/search

POST /api/opensecrets/pacs/search

Price: 10 credits

List top political action committees, top recipients of PAC money, or foreign-connected PACs

How to use it

List political action committee (PAC) rankings for an election cycle. Choose the ranking: the top PACs by money given (with party split and ideological lean), the top candidate recipients of PAC money (with party, district and the share of their fundraising from PACs), or foreign-connected PACs (with country of origin and parent company).

Parameters

• access-token string required

Request body

• timeout integer — Max scrapping execution timeout (in seconds) (default: 300; min: 20; max: 1500)
• list_type string — Which PAC ranking to return (default: "top_pacs"; one of: "top_pacs", "top_recipients", "foreign_connected")
• cycle string — Election cycle (default: "2024"; one of: "a", "2026", "2024", "2022", "2020", "2018", "2016", "2014", "2012", "2010", "2008", "2006", "2004", "2002", "2000", "1998", "1996", "1994", "1992", "1990")
• count integer required — Max number of results (min: 1)

Response

• @type string (default: "OpensecretsPac")
• name string nullable
• total integer nullable
• party string nullable
• lean string nullable
• to_democrats_percent number nullable
• to_republicans_percent number nullable
• candidate_type string nullable
• district string nullable
• country string nullable
• profile_url string nullable

Errors

• 422 — The request body did not validate Check the fields against this schema. A URN with the wrong prefix is the most common cause.
• 408 — The request ran past its time limit Raise `timeout` in the request body, up to the maximum this endpoint documents. Lowering `count` or turning off the `with_*` flags also helps, because less work finishes sooner.
• 412 — The entity was not found, or a precondition failed Retrying will not help: either the entity does not exist, or the input points at a different one.
• 429 — Too many requests: a rate limit or a usage window is exhausted When the response carries an X-Retry-After header, wait that many seconds and retry: the same number is in the body as `detail.retry_after`, and the limit clears once that window passes. The message in the body names the limit that was hit.
• 500 — Something broke on our side Retrying will not help. If it keeps happening, send us the X-Request-ID from the response headers.
• 529 — Rate limit reached, or the endpoint is overloaded Wait at least 30 seconds, then retry.

Response headers

• X-Error — Error message text (present only on error)
• X-Request-ID — Unique request identifier
• X-Execution-Time — Execution time in seconds
• X-Result-Count — How many records the body carries. 0 means an empty result, which is a normal answer and not by itself an error. A non-zero count can come back together with X-Error when the failure happened partway through — read this header and X-Error independently.
• X-Total-Available-Results — How many records exist for this query, when the endpoint can say. On a `dry_run` request this is the answer and the body is empty. It saturates: the endpoint's documented maximum means 'at least that many', any smaller number is exact.
• X-Warning — Present when the request body carried keys this endpoint does not document. They were ignored, so any filter you meant to apply through them did not apply. Check the spelling against this schema and retry.
• X-Retry-After — Seconds to wait before retrying. Present only on 429.