get_fec_independent_expenditures

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Returns FEC Schedule E independent expenditures — money spent BY a super PAC (or IE-only PAC) uncoordinatedly FOR or AGAINST a federal candidate. Hallmark vehicle for political ad spending since Citizens United (2010). Critical signal: support_oppose_indicator — 'S' = support, 'O' = oppose. A single candidate often has dozens of S and O entries across many super PACs in one cycle. Filter by support_oppose='O' to find attack ads; 'S' to find positive ads. Source: api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_e/. F24 filings (24-hour notices within 20 days of an election) and F5 (quarterly IE reports) both flow through this endpoint. Filers FEC classes as "a person or a group" (Form 5 filers, committee types I and E) are served when the filer is a group; a filer whose name is, or may be, a natural person's is withheld per record, as is any filer KeyVex holds no committee record for (FEC sale-or-use rule, 11 CFR 104.15). Killer query patterns: - Attack ads on Senator X: candidate_id='S6PA00091' + support_oppose='O' - Recent spend across a cycle: support_oppose='O' + since='2025-01-01' - Top political ad vendors: payee_name='AXIOM' (substring) - Negative spend in a race: candidate_office_state='PA' + support_oppose='O' Filter combinations note: server-side indexes support one equality filter (candidate_id / committee_id / support_oppose / candidate_office_state) + a date / amount sort. Other filters (payee_name, description, exclude_memos) are applied client-side. NOTE on cycle: the FEC leaves two_year_transaction_period null on many rows, so the `cycle` filter is INCOMPLETE (it undercounts) and is not currently indexed — scope a cycle by DATE instead, e.g. since='2025-01-01' for the 2026 cycle.