For more than 30 years, Capitol Hill insiders have relied upon a booklet published by the Tennessee Electric Cooperative Association to provide a quick and easy reference to who is who in the General Assembly. Now you can get the information on your iPhone -- and soon your iPad and Droid, too. It’s available at iTunes for $4.99.

House Speaker Beth Harwell said Thursday that she and her colleagues are looking closer at the "Don't Say Gay" bill, and reviewing the current curriculum "to see if this bill is necessary or if we have unintended consequences with this." Gov. Haslam also told reporters earlier this week he'd prefer that the issue just be dropped. The News Sentinel has this AP story.

The Tennessee Senate voted 21-9 today to approve a bill that would authorize officials to remove the Occupy Nashville encampment at the state Capitol. The no-camping bill has now cleared both chambers of the legislature. But senators added a severability clause. State Sen. Mae Beavers, R-Mt. Juliet, said the clause was added at the suggestion of the state attorney general, and its addition signifies that lawmakers expect a court challenge. The amendment sends the bill back to the House of Representatives for a second vote.

Gov. Bill Haslam said Wednesday he expects the General Assembly will pass a narrower version of a proposal to override employers' ability to stop their workers from storing guns in locked vehicles on company parking lots. “My sense is there will be a bill that makes it through,” Haslam told reporters.

Gov. Bill Haslam told reporters on Wednesday that the controversial bill dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” and several others dealing with sexual orientation should not be a priority for legislators this session. Read the details in the Tennessee Report.

The House Judiciary Committee today deferred action until Feb. 28 on a bill that would remove the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases, including rape, sexual battery, incest, statutory rape by an authority figure and sexual exploitation. The bill, HB 2278, is sponsored by Rep. Richard Floyd, R-Chattanooga. If the bill is passes, the Tennessee Department of Corrections estimates a 5 percent increase in admissions for child sex offenses.

The same coalition of businesspeople that helped sell the governor’s tort reform package, which became the Tennessee Civil Justice Act of 2011, this year wants more limitations imposed in civil lawsuits, including a handful of bills targeting the losing side in civil cases and litigants who refuse to settle lawsuits.

One bill would require a party who loses a motion to dismiss to pay the litigation costs of the opposing party. Read more in the Tennessean.

Nashville Democrat Janis Sontany says she won’t run for re-election. She’s the fourth Democrat in the state legislature to step down rather than run in newly redrawn districts. WPLN reports.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, House Speaker Beth Harwell and Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey today proposed a constitutional amendment that would set in stone the state's merit selection system for appointing appellate judges. Haslam said the amendment is needed to settle once and for all the long dispute over how judges are named and elected. "The uncertainty surrounding the process, the differences on what the constitution means and the effect that these have on the judicial branch are all results that no one wants," Haslam said. "This is the best way to handle it." TBA Executive Director Allan Ramsaur has argued that such a constitutional amendment is unnecessary but said that if the General Assembly decides it is, the association will support it.

Read more in the Tennessean

The Memphis metro area will be sliced up into different congressional districts under a redistricting plan released today, while Davidson County will remain the hub of the 5th Congressional District. The map drawn by Republican lawmakers doesn't break Nashville into several congressional seats, as some Democrats had feared, but does make other changes in Middle Tennessee, altering the 4th District significantly to extend it from Rutherford County near Nashville to Bradley County near Chattanooga.