Cash For Clout: Who’s Funding Tennessee Politics?

A user-friendly tool to track political spending in Tennessee.

Image Credit: John Partipilo

***Note from The Tennessee Conservative – this article posted here for informational purposes only.***

By Adam Friedman [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –

This database was first published in July 24, 2023. It has since been updated multiple times. The last update came on April 27, 2026.

Every year millions of dollars flow to Nashville, flooding the halls of Tennessee’s state capitol as a small number of deep-pocketed groups attempt to influence lawmakers.

The money comes in many streams through different legal channels, all aiming to influence regulations, push for tax breaks and secure government contracts, often to further private interests instead of the public. The Tennessee Lookout, relying on publicly filed lobbying and campaign finance reports, created a tool to search Tennessee’s top political spenders and recipients.

This page allows users to discover who’s spending the most cash to influence lawmakers and different ways groups spend money to gain influence.

Click screenshot below to access the tool:

Cash for Clout is an ongoing series examining the influence of money on Tennessee politics. Other articles in the series include:

• How Tennessee’s House speaker helped keep a payday lender’s struggling sports gambling company alive
• Private prison operator holds close ties with lawmakers as it sidesteps state law
• Tennessee’s largest companies secure sales tax exemptions for everything from jet fuel to water
• Connecting the dots between Tennessee’s home builders and bill to deregulate construction on wetlands
• The $27.1 million clash between education reform and public school advocates
• 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 

All the information in this article comes from the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance and relies on self-reporting by companies and individuals. If you want to contest any data in this story, email afriedman@tennesseelookout.com. Have a tip on how money is influencing decisions at the Tennessee Capitol? Send an email to afriedman@tennesseelookout.com. 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 political spender 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, $5,000 was used.

For campaign donations, the Lookout has tracked contributions to every candidate and political action committee connected to a candidate since 2012.

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.

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 2012, several companies and associations 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, person or association. All of the 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

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.