With the NCAA men’s basketball tournament kicking off this week, it’s time for the annual K Street College Classic. Rather than sitting back and waiting to see which team dominates on the court, OpenSecrets measures the teams on the strength of their lobbying budgets.

Last year, the 68 schools that received bids to the tournament spent a collective $16.5 million lobbying the federal government. While a number of the high seeds advanced far in the College Classic, our champion — the University of Texas – emerged from the “First Four” play-in round. Let’s see March Madness match that kind of upset.

After reaching the College Classic’s Final Four last year, the Texas Longhorns take home the championship in 2025 as the only school to spend seven figures on lobbying in 2024 ($1,428,000). That was more than enough to carry the school all the way from the play-in game (topping Xavier University, which hasn’t lobbied since 2008) to the finals, where it defeated the University of Florida — doubling the Gators’ total of $736,000.

Texas used a number of outside firms, primarily Cornerstone Government Affairs, and 22 lobbyists who primarily focused on lobbying for government funding, defense and scientific research. Among those lobbyists were a number of “revolvers” — elected officials, staffers and regulators who leave government service to work on K Street. 

Leading the way was Kate Raetz, who runs federal relations for the state after spending eight years serving in the Texas House of Representatives and two more working for the governor. Cody Willming was the school’s other top lobbyist. Willming is the UT system’s federal budget and policy director; he worked on Capitol Hill for eight years.

While Texas deployed nearly two dozen lobbyists, the Florida Gators got by with just four. Two of the lobbyists worked for the university’s engineering school, while the others were hired through the firm Strategic Marketing Innovations. They focused on many of the same issues as the University of Texas lobbyists.

Florida was the only top seed to reach the Final Four this year. Duke University ($784,000) made it to the Elite Eight, but Auburn lost in the second round and the University of Houston, with only $40,000 in lobbying spending, got knocked out in the first round by Southern Illinois University/Edwardsville, which spent just $5,000 more.

The Purdue Boilermakers spent the second most amount on lobbying in 2024 ($820,000) but ran into Texas in the Midwest bracket’s semifinals. Texas A&M and the University of Wisconsin joined Texas and Florida in the Final Four.

When it comes to schools that are part of large systems, the rules for the K Street College Classic can make or break their chances of winning. For example:

Here’s how that played out this year:

Both of the University of North Carolina schools that made the tournament (Chapel Hill) and (Wilmington) reported their own lobbying, so they each were assigned a dollar figure. Because Edwardsville was the only SIU school to make the tournament, it gets to take credit for the entire system’s lobbying. Both UCLA and the University of California, San Diego made the tournament but neither reported their own lobbying so they are each assigned $0 — even though the University of California system spent $2.2 million in 2024. 

The Longhorns, as the only school in the University of Texas system to get a tournament bid, likewise benefited from the rules by getting credit for all lobbying expenditures.

Marco Rubio, who served more than a dozen years in the Senate, was unanimously confirmed on Jan. 20 to be President Donald Trump’s secretary of state. Rubio ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and has since become a loyal supporter. But in recent days he has butted heads with Elon Musk over management of the State Department.

Rubio, 53, started his political career as a lawyer before entering politics as a member of the West Miami City Commission in 1998. He was elected to the state House of Representatives in 2000 and became speaker in 2006. He left the state House in 2008 and won his first Senate race two years later. Rubio was considered a strong contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, but suspended his campaign in March after losing Florida to Trump. He continued to serve in the Senate until winning confirmation as the first Latino secretary of state in January. 

To mark Sunshine Week, a time to promote government transparency and access to public records, OpenSecrets analyzed the meager progress of such bills across the country. 

Of the 300-plus bills that have been introduced in state legislatures this year, only a handful of states have passed any of them.

Bipartisan group of delegates vote down proposal allowing corporate donations to West Virginia political candidates (The Parkersburg News and Sentinel)

U.S. Rep. Jim Baird fined for failing to disclose campaign loan repayment (NPR)

Dark Money Groups Dropped $7 Million on Ohio Supreme Court Races (Cleveland Scene)

Burr, Ferguson register to lobby (Politico)

Crypto’s Clout in Washington Is Soaring (Bloomberg)

In the meantime, crypto titans pumped money into the best-funded alliance of corporate political action committees in US history — Fairshake PAC and two affiliated entities. They devoted $40 million to defeating Brown in the November election and replacing him with Republican Bernie Moreno, a blockchain entrepreneur and crypto enthusiast. The industry’s PAC spent many millions more backing several freshmen Democratic senators like Ruben Gallego of Arizona who are friendlier to crypto, per OpenSecrets data.

Trump Administration Quietly Lifted Ban on Dominican Sugar Company Over Forced Labor (The New York Times)

In 2024, the Fanjul Corporation gave a $1 million donation to Make America Great Again, a political action committee supporting Mr. Trump, as well as a $413,000 donation to the Republican National Committee, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks money in politics. The corporation also made smaller donations to Democrats.

Tesla expands D.C. footprint, leases former X office space for lobbying shop (Washington Business Journal)

Tesla in 2024 spent $750,000 lobbying the likes of the Environmental Protection Agency, The U.S. Department of Transportation, Department of Commerce and the White House, according to watchdog OpenSecrets. The company last year also paid outside lobbyists Cassidy & Associates, Ernst & Young and Pioneer Public Affairs another $680,000 combined, per Open Secrets. 

How Pam Bondi Got Rich In Just Six Years Out Of Office (Forbes)

How’d she do it? First, she started working as a lobbyist for Florida-based Ballard Partners. According to a database maintained by the political transparency group OpenSecrets, big names like General Motors, Carnival and Major League Baseball—plus 13 other clients, like GEO Group, which invests in private prisons—hired her in 2019, presumably hoping to leverage her close relations to Donald Trump’s first administration. 

Howard Lutnick's net worth: From Wall Street heavyweight to Commerce Secretary (TheStreet)

Lutnick, a Republican, was active in the 2024 presidential election, donating millions of dollars to political action committees (PACs), according to a record of transactions compiled by OpenSecrets, which tracks political contributions.

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