As much as they like. There are no limits, either for individual lobbyists or their clients. In 2005 the US Chamber of Commerce led the field, spending nearly $39 million on lobbying for that year alone. In the first half of 2006, the Altria Group (formerly Philip Morris) spent the most, $6.8 million.

Keep in mind that lobbying costs are less exact than campaign contributions. When clients hire outside lobbyists, the full value of their contract must be reported. But the cost of an organization's in-house lobbying is only an estimate.

3b. How much money does (blank industry) spend on lobbying?

This is an easy one – thanks to the Lobbyist Disclosure Act of 1995 that required lobbyists and their clients to report their expenditures, and the industry classification system of the Center for Responsive Politics, which has studied the patterns ever since the law was enacted.

You can find the top 20 industries spending money on lobbying on the OpenSecrets website here. This is what it looks like:

If the industry you’re looking for isn’t listed among the top 20, you’re still in luck, though it will take a little more work. Simply click on the link that says Search Database and you’ll see the screen below:

One option on this page is to search by industry. The quickest way to get the full list is to click one of the links shown above. One gives an alphabetical list; the other is arranged hierarchically by industry and sector.

Once you’ve selected the industry you want, you’ll see its full profile (below), with an alphabetical list of all companies within it and what they spent on lobbying in the most recent year available. If you want a quick list of the companies in the industry that are spending the most on lobbying, simply click the Total column to sort the companies by the amount they spent..

This is a lot easier than checking campaign contributions, because there’s a much smaller universe of companies. Also, most of the information you need is in one place: the lobbying database compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Here’s the opening page of that section. (If you get lost on the Open Secrets website, you can always find the lobbying section again under the “Who Gives” tab at the top of the page.)

On this page you’ll be able to see the top overall spenders on lobbying since 1998. And you’ll find a lookup window for typing in the name of the company you’re looking for.

You’ll next get a screen like this, showing any variations on the name you typed:

Click on the company name and you’ll get the full lobbing profile (below):

You can check earlier years through the pull-down menu. You can see at a glance how much they spent on lobbying for the most recent year available. And the chart at the top right shows the spending pattern since 1998, when lobbying disclosure laws made this kind of information available for the first time.

At the bottom of the page, you a list of the lobbying firms that were hired to do the work.

And like all OpenSecrets pages, there are plenty of other options to click in the menus on the left side of the page.

The only problem with CRP’s data is that it’s not as up-to-date as the latest filings. For those, you need to go to the source: the database of the U.S. Senate’s Office of Public Records:

You’ll be greeted by this spartan screen showing all the search options. If you’re looking for a particular company that you think has hired lobbyists, select Client Name and hit GO.

That will take you to this even more Spartan page, where you can type in the name of the company:

Hit GO again and you’ll get a list of all the companies with the name you typed:

As you can see, the Senate doesn’t clean the data like CRP does. You’ll have to search each variation. Let’s start with the first one and click the link on MICROSOFT.

Now you have an index of every report filed by the lobbyists who listed “MICROSOFT” as a client. (Remember, you’ve got to go back and do this for all other variations of the name too!)

The reports that list dollar amounts spent on lobbying will be found in the Mid-Year and Year-End reports. The Registration filings are simply notifications that a particular lobbying firm has been signed on to lobby for a specific client.

If you click on the YEAR-END REPORT for the ALEXANDER STRATEGY GROUP, for instance, you’ll see a copy of the actual report filed with the Senate. It’s not pretty, but there it is.

The most current place to get information on whether a particular person is a lobbyist is from the U.S. Senate’s Office of Public Records, which collects all lobbyist reports. Simply select the Lobbyist Name field, shown below, and hit the GO button.

Once you hit the GO button, you’ll see a new screen, where you can fill in the name you’re looking for.

Hit GO again, and a new screen will appear showing all matches with the name you’ve typed. Notice from the example below that the same lobbyist will often have more than one entry. To track all their activities, you need to check both of them.

Click on the name and you’ll see a list of all their filings and clients:

While the Senate website will give you all the latest listings, you can also look up lobbyists on the OpenSecrets website here:

Hit OK and you’ll get a listing of all lobbyists with that name. Notice that unlike the Senate site, Open Secrets standardizes the names of all lobbyists and clients:

Click on the lobbyist’s name again and you’ll see a list of all his or her clients:

Bottom line: to be sure you’ve got all the latest filings, use the Senate website. But if you want an easy-to-read standardized list of all their clients in an easy-to-use format, use Open Secrets.