(Photo illustrations by John Partipilo)
This database was first published in July 24, 2023. since then Updated Multiple times. The final update took place on February 24th, 2025.
Millions of dollars flow to Nashville every year, flooding the halls of Tennessee’s state capitol building. As a A few Deep group groups try to influence lawmakers.
Money is provided in many streams through various legal channels, all Promote tax credits with the aim of affecting regulations and They often secure government contracts. Tennessee Observatory relied on public lobbying and campaign finance reports to create a tool to search for top political spenders and recipients in Tennessee.
This page Allow users Discover who spends the most cash to influence lawmakers and the different ways that groups spend their money to gain influence.
Through the search bar below:
- Explore all people and organizations that have given politicians in a particular state at least $1,000
- Look at politicians and organizations who spend money independently to select a selected candidate
- Find all the organizations that spent their money lobbying lawmakers in Capitol Hill, Nashville
Cash for Clout is an ongoing series examining the impact of money on Tennessee’s politics. Other articles in the series include:
All information in this article comes from the Tennessee Election Financial Registry and relies on self-reports by businesses and individuals. If you would like to object to the data for this story, please send an email. [email protected].
Any tips on how money is affecting Tennessee Capitol decisions? I’ll send an email to [email protected]. To encrypt messaging, use the text 615-249-8509 for the signal or call the same number.
Methodology:
The data underlying this story comes from the Lobbying and Campaign Finance Reports databases maintained by the Tennessee Department of Ethics and Campaign Finance. To create a top donor list, Lookout combined spending from three categories: lobbying, campaign contributions and independent spending.
The Bureau provides range lobbying spending. For example, if the report ranged between $10,000 and $25,000, the observation deck spent $17,500 on the amount spent. When the report said it was under $10,000, $1,000 was spent.
For campaign contributions, The Lookout has tracked all candidates related to the candidates and contributions to the Political Action Committee since 2009.
The candidates and their contributions to the PAC were combined in reporting how much they raised. In many cases, these contributions were a refund for campaign costs, and thus eliminated all contributions from elected officials to the Party PAC (Tennessee Legislative Campaign Commission and Tennessee Tomorrow PAC).
Independent spending was also reported as part of the Tennessee Ethics and Campaign Finance Campaign Database based on Expenses. I used a similar method for my donation to edit the full expenditure list.
Since 2010, several companies, associations, and families have used multiple political action committees, changed their company names, and purchased other companies in Tennessee for political activities. Lookout combined all the names you can find for a single company, family, or association. All past company campaign finance and lobbying data were combined in the name of the new company merger.
You can also download the data behind this story
A completely unedited campaign finance database is divided into folders; It includes more than 2 million data, including donations to lawmakers, lawmakers PACs, and donations to PACs operated in Tennessee (January 16, 2010 to January 15, 2025). Includes:
Compiled format for campaign finance datathis data reflects data from a thriving chart “searching for campaign funders for Tennessee state politicians.”
Lookout lobbying spending data (January 1, 2010 to June 30, 2024) You can download merged names.
Independent expenditure data (From January 16, 2010 to January 15, 2025). (58.1 MB)
Click here for links Tennessee Ethics and Campaign Finance Campaign Contributions and Costs on the website.
Click here for links on the Tennessee Ethics and Campaign Finance Lobbying website.
Our stories may be reissued online or printed under Creative Commons licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please edit or shorten the style only, provide appropriate attribution, or link to our website. AP and Getty Images may not be reissued. Please see our reissue guidelines for using other photos and graphics.
