The 12 Days of APIs

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IMG_1609‘Tis the season for application programming interfaces. Sunlight is in a festive mood. Not only are we hosting a pretty rad open house this week, but we have the perfect present for the open data developer in your life: a Sunlight Labs API key!

Here are our “12 days of APIs,” with a few bulk data sets thrown in to round it out. No singing required! Be sure to also check out some new additions and better accessibility we’ll have available in 2013.

12 minutes spent researching our API offerings on Sunlight Academy, which includes a brief tutorial video.

11 television markets reported more than 1,500 political ad filings this election. Download data about who bought more than $3 billion in political ads in 2012 from Political Ad Sleuth.

10 methods provided in the Sunlight Congress API. Our most popular API includes basic information on members of Congress, legislator IDs and lookups between places and the politicians that represent them.

9 political races had more than $20 million in outside spending this election. Download the bulk data on the money spent by super PACs, unions, corporations, nonprofits and other groups this cycle at Follow the Unlimited Money.

8 data sets covered by the Influence Explorer API (neé TransparencyData), which includes federal and state campaign contributions, federal lobbying, government grants and contracts, EPA violations, federal regulations and more.

7 collections presented in the Real Time Congress API. Get as close to real-time data as possible on bills, votes, amendments, videos, floor updates, committee hearings and documents.

6 standard arguments to query in the Capitol Words API. Search the Capitol Record since 1996 and filter your results by state, party, chamber, date, start date or end date.

5(0) states available in the Open States API, which also covers D.C. and Puerto Rico. Use the RESTful API or bulk download to access the only comprehensive collection of state legislative data in the U.S.

4 ways to get Political Party Time data. Use the JSON feed, CSV file, RSS feed or relational zip file to know when politicians are fundraising and who is hosting the events.

3 mobile apps powered by our APIs: Real Time Congress for iPhone, Congress for Android and OpenStates for iPhone and iPad. (And check out Call on Congress if you don’t have a smartphone.)

2 options to get Scout alerts, by email or via text message. Scout uses a variety of Sunlight APIs—Capitol Words, Real Time Congress and Open States—to deliver real-time policy alerts on state and national issues, as well as has special user option for developers.

And a listserv to follow what’s happening in Sunlight Labs.

Flickr photo of partridge in a pear tree light display by K. van Santen.