OpenSecrets.org launches Anomaly Tracker tool for researching government funding.

From the OpenSecrets blog:

For years, our researchers have analyzed and crunched numbers looking for outliers -- instances where a politician relies to an unusual degree on one group of donors, for instance, or contributors from one geographic area dominate a candidate's fundraising. Earlier this week we introduced a new tool so users of our site can join us in this search: the Anomaly Tracker.

The tracker will look for four different types of anomalies:

1. Lawmakers sponsoring legislation that was lobbied by only one company or other organization whose employees or PAC also donated to the sponsoring lawmakers.
2. Lawmakers receiving twice as much in contributions from their top donors as their next highest donors.
3. Lawmakers receiving twice as much in contributions from their top donor industries as their next highest donor industries.
4. Lawmakers receiving more than 50 percent of their itemized contributions from out of state.

Explore the  Anomaly Tracker.