# Political Payola (`politicalpayola.com`) — Empirical Methodology, Nonpartisan Charter & Editorial Independence Policy

**Version:** 2.4.0 (Updated 2026-10-31)  
**Public License:** Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (`CC-BY-4.0`) for public-interest researchers, Title I educators, and nonpartisan civic organizations  
**Compliance Standard:** Institute for Nonprofit News (INN) Editorial Independence & IRS Section 501(c)(3) Nonpartisan Educational Standard  
**Headquarters:** Pueblo, Colorado (Serving all 50 U.S. States with dedicated Southern & Rural Colorado Information-Equity Coverage)

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## 1. Nonpartisan Equal-Standard Audit Rule
Political Payola is an empirical, citation-locked public-interest civic data atlas. We do not endorse, oppose, or grade candidates on subjective ideology:
1. **Identical Mathematical Formulas Across All Parties:** Every U.S. president (1981–2026, Ronald Reagan through the present administration), all 50 U.S. states (27 Republican-led, 23 Democratic-led), and all 539 members of the 119th U.S. Congress (Senate, House, and territorial delegates across Republican, Democratic, and Independent caucuses) are evaluated using identical, pre-registered quantitative indicators.
2. **Primary-Source & Peer-Reviewed Verification Only:** No statistic enters the Political Payola ledger without a direct, 1-click verifiable link to either:
   - **Official U.S. Federal Repositories:** `FEC.gov` (campaign committee filings), `Congress.gov` (roll-call votes & statutory text), `CBO.gov` (Congressional Budget Office scorecards), `BLS.gov`, `CDC.gov` (WONDER / NISVS), and `Census.gov` (SAIPE poverty tables).
   - **Peer-Reviewed Scientific, Medical & Economic Literature:** *JAMA Network Open*, *The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)*, *American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM)*, *Presidential Studies Quarterly*, *Journal of Labor Economics*, Kaiser Family Foundation (*KFF*), National Bureau of Economic Research (*NBER*), Pew Research Center, and Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics (*CAWP*).

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## 2. Donor, Foundation & Commercial Firewall Policy
To protect public trust and satisfy foundation governance standards (Knight Foundation, Democracy Fund, Hewlett Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Colorado Media Project):
- **Strict Editorial Firewall:** No foundation grantmaker, fiscal sponsor, commercial API subscriber, union licensee, or individual reader supporter has any authority to review, edit, delay, or suppress any dataset, state ranking, roll-call record, or FEC donor table prior to publication.
- **501(c)(3) Ring-Fencing of Philanthropic Grants:** 100% of foundation grants and tax-exempt civic contributions are strictly ring-fenced for:
  1. Free, open-access bilingual (`EN/ES`) voter and health-policy literacy at a 10th-grade reading level.
  2. Title I high school and community college civics curriculum modules.
  3. Southern & Rural Colorado information-equity reporting (covering Colorado's 64 counties, including Pueblo, Huerfano, Las Animas, Otero, Fremont, Custer, and El Paso).
  4. Open-source WebMCP (`/api/tools.json`) anti-hallucination schemas for public-interest AI research.
- **FEC Conduit Compliance (11 CFR § 110.6):** Political Payola never acts as a campaign contribution conduit and never skims or processes donations to political candidates or political action committees.

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## 3. Public Right-of-Reply & Timestamped Corrections Log
Any lawmaker, state agency, academic researcher, or citizen who identifies a discrepancy between a figure displayed on `politicalpayola.com` and an official federal or peer-reviewed primary source may submit a correction request via our on-site **Public Corrections & Verification Desk**.
- Verified primary-source updates are applied within 24 hours and logged publicly with commit SHA in our open repository (`github.com/jjordanjr74-dot/politicalpayola-site`).
- **2026 Audit Log:**
  - `2026-10-31`: Expanded dataset to 5,309 verified records across 26 modules; added WebMCP v1.1 schema, `CITATION.cff`, and bilingual classroom curriculum kit.
  - `2026-10-20`: Verified all 539 119th Congress portraits and FEC candidate committee links (`HTTP 200` audit).


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## 4. Institutional Governance, IRS 501(c)(3) Compliance & Impact Evaluation
- **Governance, Ethics & Donor Transparency Policy:** 
- **IRS 501(c)(3) Nonpartisanship & IRC § 4945 Grant Compliance:** 
- **Impact Metrics, Evaluation Framework & 12-Month Grant Budget:** 
- **High School & Community College Civics Curriculum Kit ():** 
- **Academic Citation ():** 
- **WebMCP Anti-Hallucination Tool Manifests:**  &