WSMV’s Cara Kumari is reporting that newly elected Speaker of the House Rep. Kent Williams (R, the Fightin’ 4th!) says he approached the Democrats about becoming speaker, “simply because he wanted to be speaker.”

The Scene’s Jeff Woods writes that House Democratic leader Gary Odom (D, the Fightin’ 55th!) traveled to Elizabethton to see Williams and “Out of the blue, Odom asked Williams how he’d like to be the speaker of the House.”