Campaign Expenditures in the United States, 1997-1998: Reports on Financial Activity (RFA) Data

<p>The summary file includes one record for each Non-Party committee, with the records arranged first by the type of organizations sponsoring the committee. All committees sponsored by corporations appear first, followed by all labor sponsored committees, those with no sponsoring organ- ization, committees of trade, membership, or health-related organizations, committees sponsored by cooperatives, and finally those committees sponsored by corporations without capital stock. It is important to note that this classifica- tion is derived from information supplied by the committees on their statements of organization. Substantive classifications will vary based on the research question being addressed. Within each type, records are arranged alphabetically by committee name. It is important that the limitations of the information on this file be understood. It includes financial activity reported as having taken place during the period from January 1, 1995 through June 30, 1997. Information appearing on reports covering this period which were received prior to September 20, 1997 has been included on the tape. While it is intended to give a complete picture of the financial activity which occurred thus far during 1997-98, amendments to reports covering that period may be filed after September 20, 1997. Available at the Commission for inspection are microfilmed copies of the original reports which show information as reported by the filers. The microfilmed public record is the official record of the Federal Election Commission. These files represent one of several tools which have been developed to summarize the vast quantity of data available on the microfilmed public record.</p>

本摘要文件为每个非党派委员会（Non-Party committee）各生成一条记录，记录首先按委员会的赞助组织类型排序。所有由企业赞助的委员会位列首位，随后依次为劳工赞助委员会、无赞助组织的委员会、贸易、会员制或健康相关组织下设的委员会、合作社赞助的委员会，最后是无股本企业赞助的委员会。需特别说明，本分类体系源自各委员会提交的组织声明中的相关信息，具体的细分分类需根据研究问题进行调整。在每一类中，记录均按委员会名称的字母顺序排列。需充分理解本文件所载信息的局限性：其涵盖的财务活动报告时段为1995年1月1日至1997年6月30日。1997年9月20日前收到的该时段报告信息均已录入本数据集。尽管本文件旨在完整呈现1997-1998年度迄今的财务活动情况，但1997年9月20日后仍可能提交该时段报告的修订版本。原始报告的缩微胶片副本可在联邦选举委员会（Federal Election Commission）处供公众查阅，该副本完整呈现了提交者所填报的信息。该缩微胶片公开记录是联邦选举委员会的官方档案。本数据集是为汇总缩微胶片公开记录中的海量数据而开发的多项工具之一。