get_disbursements

Retrieve itemized expenditures (Schedule B) made by a campaign committee. Shows payment recipients, amounts, and stated purposes. Supports filtering by amount for researching significant spending patterns and campaign finance transparency.

Server Fec sh-patterson/fec-mcp-server
Category Read
Risk class Low
Parameters 00 required

What get_disbursements does on Fec

AI agents call get_disbursements to retrieve information from Fec without modifying anything — typically the context-gathering step in research, monitoring, and reporting workflows, before the agent takes action elsewhere.

Why get_disbursements needs a policy

This tool retrieves historical financial records without creating, modifying, deleting, or executing any operations. It is a query operation against the OpenFEC API for transparency data. There is no indication of side effects, state changes, or ability to alter records. Campaign finance data is typically public information, and retrieval of it poses minimal risk.

From the tool's definition The tool description explicitly states it 'Retrieve[s] itemized expenditures' with 'no modification capability indicated. It is designed to show historical spending data ("payment recipients, amounts, and stated purposes") and supports filtering for analysis.

Questions about get_disbursements

What does the get_disbursements tool do? +

Retrieve itemized expenditures (Schedule B) made by a campaign committee. Shows payment recipients, amounts, and stated purposes. Supports filtering by amount for researching significant spending patterns and campaign finance transparency. It is categorised as a Read tool in the Fec MCP Server, which means it retrieves data without modifying state.

How do I enforce a policy on get_disbursements? +

Register the Fec MCP server in PolicyLayer and add a rule for get_disbursements: allow, deny, rate-limit, or require approval. Point your MCP client at the PolicyLayer proxy URL and the rule is enforced on every call, before it reaches Fec. Nothing to install.

What risk level is get_disbursements? +

get_disbursements is a Read tool with low risk. Read-only tools are generally safe to allow by default.

Can I rate-limit get_disbursements? +

Yes. Add a rate_limit block to the get_disbursements rule in your PolicyLayer policy. For example, setting max: 10 and window: 60 limits the tool to 10 calls per minute. Rate limits are tracked per agent session and reset automatically.

How do I block get_disbursements completely? +

Set action: deny in the PolicyLayer policy for get_disbursements. The AI agent will receive a policy violation error and cannot call the tool. You can also include a reason field to explain why the tool is blocked.

What MCP server provides get_disbursements? +

get_disbursements is provided by the Fec MCP server (sh-patterson/fec-mcp-server). PolicyLayer sits as a proxy in front of this server to enforce policies before tool calls reach the server.

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