Jessica Fender
The Tennessean

NASHVILLE, TN -- A state senator who for years has pushed bills benefiting Tennessee's wildlife agency leads a Dickson nonprofit that landed an annual $450,000 grant to produce the agency's outdoors television program.

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency bypassed open bidding rules in 2000 when it awarded its second-largest grant to the Renaissance Center — run by state Sen. Doug Jackson — instead of inviting competing proposals through a public contracting process.

Several other potential producers, some more experienced or promising more viewers, have since offered to do the 30-minute magazine-style Tennessee's Wild Side for as little as half the money, but the TWRA and its commissioners haven't taken the bait.

TWRA officials say no other suitor has offered the kind of quality provided by the Renaissance Center, which has collected two regional Emmys and a slew of other awards for its efforts.

And Jackson said he had not used political influence to land or keep the grant.

Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, said that wildlife commissioners who rely on legislators and the governor for their positions probably felt compelled to favor Jackson's group. The Center for Policy Research is a free-market think tank that is often critical of state government.

"And I think it's ridiculous to think that a nonprofit run by a state senator is more equipped to produce a television show than a major TV station in Nashville," Johnson said.

WKRN-Channel 2, Nashville's ABC affiliate, was once among those that offered to produce Wild Side at a lower cost than Renaissance Center.

Bills aimed to aid TWRA

In the last year, Jackson sponsored several bills that would drive money into the TWRA's coffers, including one unsuccessful proposal to reroute to the agency $9 million in sales tax revenue from hunting and fishing gear.

Other proposals — none of them successful — would have given TWRA $3 per pound of fish eggs harvested from Tennessee waters and would have let the agency charge extra fees for special hunting permits.

Jackson, who gets an annual salary of $256,000 as executive director of the Renaissance Center, serves as secretary of the Senate legislative panel that considers bills involving the wildlife agency.

Jackson said his prominence hadn't affected decisions regarding the show.

"I certainly don't influence them, and I don't benefit from the show," said the Dickson Democrat, who displays the two Emmy statues in his legislative office. "The Renaissance Center has done an exemplary job in the production of that program at an affordable price."

In 2005, Jackson sponsored legislation that would have allowed the Renaissance Center to pull from a multimillion-dollar pool of money controlled by the Education Department. Worried about a perceived conflict of interest, he later put the kibosh on the proposal at the height of ethics sensitivity on Capitol Hill.

State ethics laws don't prohibit state grants from going to groups tied to lawmakers, though financial disclosures must reflect all sources of personal income, said Bruce Androphy, executive director of the state Ethics Commission.

And if the grant or the Wild Side program was to come before the legislature, Jackson would be obligated to announce his interest, Androphy said.

Wild Side is now produced by the center and aired for free on public broadcasting stations across the state, including Nashville's WNPT-Channel 8.

TWRA defends its pick

Those itching for the Emmy-winning show to dip its toes into the lucrative commercial market argue that agency staffers have not done enough to explore options outside Jackson's cultural and entertainment center. Among them is former state wildlife commissioner Bill Cox.

"We could have gotten a show equal to what we've got now, and we would have gotten the exposure of commercial television," said Cox, who in March left the board that oversees the wildlife agency.

Wild Side is paid for through a grant from the wildlife agency's budget, which is funded mostly from sales of hunting and fishing licenses.

Along with Channel 2's proposal from 2006, the TWRA also rejected a 2003 proposal by fishing guru Bill Dance's production company, according to Don King, chief of the TWRA unit that oversees the show.

The proposals have either been rife with uncertainties about when and where the program would broadcast or have been too costly for the state agency, King said.

In fact, the TWRA board in January decided to allow the Renaissance Center to proceed with its four-year, $1.8 million grant without annual approval.

"It's hard to write 'quality' into a comparison on something like this," King said. "They help us present a really good image of the" agency.