House Speaker Williams assigns new committee chairs

House Speaker Kent Williams took a bipartisan approach in selecting chairs for the 13 standing committees in the TN House today. He appointed 7 Republicans and 6 Democrats to chair the committees. The committee chairs selections will impact the success or failure of many bills that affect LGBT citizens of Tennessee. Here's the breakdown from the Commerical Appeal:

For the next two years in the House, Republicans will head the Commerce, Conservation and Environment, Consumer and Employee Affairs, Education, Government Operations and State and Local Government committees, plus the all-important Calendar and Rules Committee, the gateway to the House floor through which every bill must pass and which has authority to kill legislation.

Rep. Bill Dunn, R-Knoxville, is Calendar and Rules’ new chairman, replacing Rep. Larry Miller, D-Memphis.

Democrats will chair the Agriculture, Children and Family Affairs, Health, Judiciary and Transportation Committees, plus the all-important Finance Committee, where Rep. Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, will continue to preside. All bills that spend money must flow through Finance.

In the last session, a bill that would have prevented any discussion of homosexuality in public schools was defeated in an Education K-12 Subcommittee. I'm not sure if a Democrat was allowed to chair the K-12 subcommittee. If the K-12 subcommittee is chaired by the same party as the larger Education committee, that may make it easier to advance anti-LGBT bill to the floor for a full house vote.

The Children and Family Affairs Committee will again be headed by a Democrat. An anti-gay adoption bill never made it out of this committee last session while under Democratic control. This may be good news if similar legislation is introduced.

Coach Alexander in the game

The Knoxville News Sentinel includes this profile of Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference. Calling Alexander a "moderate," the piece discusses his ability to reach out to Democrats and the weekly bipartisan breakfasts that he cohosts with Independent Senator Joe Lieberman.

One of Sen. Alexander's recent outreach efforts was missing from the story, though. He worked with Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen to get Bishop William Graves of Memphis reappointed to the TVA board. He had been deadlocked with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who thought it was time for a Democrat to be appointed to the board. Bishop Graves identifies as a Democrat, but has supported Republicans such as President Bush and Alexander himself.

Sen. Alexander's rising position gives him the opportunity to advocate for Tennessee on a more regular basis:

"Whenever I see the president, which is more often now, I remind him about our clean air issues in Tennessee," he said. "I remember walking in to (see) him, and he said, 'Lamar's going to ask me about sulfur.' "