Cash for Clout database: Tennessee’s million-dollar club
Apr 11, 2024 | 7:00 am ET
Description
Cash for Clout is a Tennessee Lookout series examining the influence of money on state politics. (Photo: John Partipilo)
Since 2009, 202 groups have spent more than $1 million in Tennessee politics.
An analysis of the spending of Tennessee’s exclusive seven-figure club shows the money serves as a benchmark of the power of private groups to influence public policy.
The expenditures are legally allowed under the state’s campaign laws. While no set amount of money guarantees access and influence, expenditures of more than $1 million show a consistent effort over time by private groups to maximize their lobbying efforts.
David Miller, a politics professor at East Tennessee State University, said organizations looking to influence often pay a minimum to maintain relationships.
“If you’ve established a presence, you’re able to get more out of lobbying,” Miller said.
For the $1 million club, the Lookout provides a 15-year lookback. As of the April 10 update, that database reflects campaign contributions, independent expenditures, and lobbying reports from Jan. 16, 2009, to Jan. 15, 2024.
For future reference, when new campaign finance records are filed on June 30, the 15-year period will only cover July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2024.
This database was first published in July 24, 2023. It has since been updated multiple times. The last update came on April 10, 2024
Cash for Clout is an ongoing series examining the influence of money on Tennessee politics. Other articles in the series include:
- Who’s funding Tennessee’s politics?
- What happens when a cash-poor billionaire wants a new sports stadium? Lobbying.
- AT&T, the broadband conundrum and a $204 million tax exemption
- Timely donations to Gov. Lee spark rise of Tennessee charter operator with dubious ties
- The $27.1 million clash between education reform and public school advocates
- Connecting the dots between Tennessee’s home builders and bill to deregulate construction on wetlands
Have a tip on how money is influencing decisions at the Tennessee Capitol? Send an email to [email protected]. For encrypting messaging, text 615-249-8509 on Signal, or call the same number.
Methodology:
The underlying data for this story comes from a lobbying report database and a campaign finance report database maintained by the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance. To create the top donor list, the Lookout combined spending from three categories — lobbying, campaign donations and independent expenditures.
The Bureau provides lobbying expenditures in ranges. For example, when the report said $10,000 to $25,000, the Lookout used $17,500 for the amount spent. When the report said less than $10,000, $1,000 was used.
For campaign donations, the Lookout has tracked contributions to every candidate and political action committee connected to a candidate since 2009.
Contributions to candidates and their PACs were combined when reporting how much they raised. We eliminated all donations from elected officials to their party PACs (Tennessee Legislative Campaign Committee and Tennessee Tomorrow PAC) because often those donations were reimbursements for campaign expenses.
We also did not include all self-donations involved in the 2018 gubernatorial race because Gov. Bill Lee and candidates Randy Boyd, Diane Black and Karl Dean donated significant personal money to each of their campaigns. This database also removed does not include donations lawmakers and their PACs returned.
Independent expenditures were also reported as part of the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance campaign database under expenditures. We used a similar method for donations to compile a complete spending list.
Since 2009, several companies, associations, and families have used multiple political action committees, changed their company names, or purchased other companies with political activity in Tennessee. The Lookout combined all the names it could find for a single company, family, or association. All of a past company’s campaign finance and lobbying data were combined under the new company’s name for mergers.
The data behind this story is also available to download
The completely unedited campaign finance database, which contains nearly 2 million rows of data includes donations to lawmakers, lawmakers PAC and donations to any PAC that has operated in Tennessee (from Jan. 1, 2009, to Jan. 15, 2024). (386.4 MB)
An edited form of campaign finance data, which includes donations directly to lawmakers or those who ran for office from Jan. 1, 2009, to Jan. 15, 2024 (77.5 MB)
The Lookout’s lobbying expenditures data (from Jan. 1, 2009, to Dec. 31, 2023) with merged name is available for download by clicking here. (3.5 MB)
Data on independent expenditures (from Jan. 16. 2009 to Jan. 15, 2024). (58.1 MB)
Click here for the link to the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance campaign contribution and expenses website.
Click here for the link to the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance lobbying website.
Nashville, TN
