Explaining Lookout's 2024 Cash for Clout Database Update • Tennessee Lookout

Last July, the Tennessee Lookout launched its Cash for Clout project to provide the public with easy-to-understand information about campaign finance and lobbying.

In the 10 months since, the Lookout has detailed how the Tennessee Titans hired an unprecedented number of lobbyists to persuade state and Nashville lawmakers to spend $1.26 billion in taxpayer money on a new NFL stadium; connected the dots between a bill to deregulate the state's wetlands and a mysterious new political action committee; and showed how timely donations to Gov. Bill Lee sparked the rise of a charter school operator with dubious connections.

In addition to these stories, the Lookout maintains two publicly accessible databases: Who Funds Politics in Tennessee and Tennessee's Million Dollar Political Spending Club.

The databases and stories are based on publicly available information maintained by the Tennessee Bureau of Ethics and Campaign Finance. However, the data associated with these stories is often stored on various websites. Adding to the confusion, some companies use different labels for lobbying, campaign contributions and independent expenditures, making it more difficult for the public to tie all of their spending together.

This year, Lookout will continue to update its two database sites and write more stories using this data. We released several during the 2024 legislative session.

The database is updated regularly as new lobbying and campaign finance reports are filed. However, the April 10 update is the most comprehensive since launch.

Several information cards in the Who's Funding database have been updated to reflect political spending as of January 15, 2024, the final campaign finance deadline before the start of the legislative session.

For the $1 million club, the Lookout offers a 15-year look back. As of the April 10 update, this database reflects campaign contributions, independent expenditures and lobbying reports from January 16, 2009 through January 15, 2024.

For future reference, when new campaign finance records are filed on June 30, the 15-year period will only cover the period from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2024. The Lookout will update the database after the campaign finance deadline in No more updating on April 1 because current lawmakers will not have raised money during the legislative session due to restrictions on campaign contributions.

Over time, this could impact who belongs to the $1 million club, but currently there are 202 companies, associations and families in this group.

Changes in Payday Lenders

Because of corporate mergers and the use of a political action committee called “Tennessee First” that was able to obscure some of the industry's political donations, payday lenders were the most difficult political donors to prosecute.

Community Choice Financial merged with Check Into Cash last year and bought TitleMax, meaning all political spending now flows from one company.

The Tennessee First PAC is funded by several payday lenders. To fairly attribute donations to the right company, Lookout used a company's donation percentage to estimate its spending.

Advance Financial, for example, donated 23% of the $790,000 the PAC raised. So Tennessee First spent $690,000 $158,700 was contributed to Advance Financial.