Lobbying client · LD-2 disclosures
Start Early
Illinois
38 filings from 1 registrant · 2017–2026 · latest filed Jul 20, 2026
Reported on its behalf
$2.3M
every LD-2 on file
Its own filed spend
$0
lobbying for itself
Fees to outside firms
$2.3M
across every firm on file
Spend over time
Every filing period on record, as reported. One column per filed period — a period with no column is a period with no filing, not a zero.
Basis · Amendments and terminations supersede the original report for the same registrant, client and period, so a revised quarter is counted once at its latest filed value. Registration-only filings carry no activity money and are excluded from these totals.
Who lobbies for them
Every outside firm that has filed on this client's behalf, by fees reported.
Reading this · LD-2 reports a hired firm's fee and a registrant's reported expenses on separate lines and never both on one filing, so the two lists above are different quantities and are ranked separately rather than against each other. Firm names link to their own record as the firms chapter lands.
What they lobby on
Issue areas declared on the filings, ranked by how many filings name each one.
Education
EDU
33 filings
$2.1M on those filings
Welfare
WEL
29 filings
$1.9M on those filings
Taxation/Internal Revenue Code
TAX
Bills named in the filings
The 15 most-cited of 31 bill references, extracted from the activity descriptions.
Who did the lobbying
Every lobbyist named on this client's filings.
- Catherine Finley Thorn Run PartnersCovered position: Staff Director, Senate Special Aging Committee; Senior Health Policy Advisor, Sen. Smith; Legislative Asst, Sen. Snowe41 filingsthrough 2026
- Jessie Howe Brairton Thorn Run PartnersCovered position: Senior Legislative Asst/Legislative Asst, Rep. Lamar Smith; LC/Asst, Senate Special Aging Committee41 filingsthrough 2026
- Gary Palmquist Thorn Run PartnersCovered position: LegDir-Dennis Cardoza,Bob Clement,Ken Bentsen6 filingsthrough 2019
Covered positions · 3 of 3 lobbyists named on these filings disclosed a prior government post. The text is reproduced exactly as filed.
The filings
The 20 most recent of 38 filings. Every figure above is built from these records.
This record groups every filed spelling of the client's name into one entity, so "MERCK & CO., INC." and "MERCK & CO INC" read as the same company. The grouping is the client's normalized name — organizations that file under genuinely different names appear separately. Handle: start-early.