Vice President Joe Biden assured reporters that a recent White House-sponsored trip to the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa was just an official and social call, not the beginning of a presidential campaign. He said choosing to run in 2016 is a family personal decision that he will announce sometime this summer. WCYB has more from CNN.

Some Chattanooga officials say efforts by Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, to dissolve union agreements with city workers amounts to an attack on municipal employees statewide and could negatively affect up to 3,000 workers in Chattanooga alone. Kelsey said yesterday he is only trying to help cities with Senate Bill 123, which seeks to prevent cities and metropolitan governments in Tennessee from recognizing or entering agreements with employee unions and rendering any "agreement, contract, understanding, or practice, written or oral, implied or expressed" between a city and a union "illegal, void and of no legal effect." The Chattanooga Times Free Press has more.

Chattanooga Bar Association President Paul Hatcher warns of the danger of the unauthorized practice of law in a Hamilton County Herald column. Hatcher cites his disagreement with a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed in which the author praised non-licensed paralegal services and criticized bar associations and state attorneys general for bringing suits against unauthorized practitioners. “Our law license assures Tennessee consumers that we have a basic level of training and competence as required by the State of Tennessee, and that we have access to the courts,” Hatcher states. “That license is a valuable asset to us as lawyers, but it is valuable to the public as well.”

The Center for American Progress has launched “Hear the Nine,” a months-long campaign designed to influence the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision regarding the Affordable Care Act. The group will release nine personal stories — one for each justice — that highlight citizens who have benefited from health care under ACA. Business Clarksville has more.

The Tennessee Supreme Court today agreed to decide whether a death row inmate can properly challenge the constitutionality of the possibility of electrocution as a method of execution. The lawsuit by 34 death row inmates challenges several aspects of Tennessee’s death penalty protocol. In an order filed today, the Court agreed to hear the State’s request to dismiss the plaintiffs’ challenge to electrocution as a method of execution, asserting that none of the plaintiffs is subject to execution by electrocution at this time. The case will be heard in oral arguments May 6 in Knoxville.

Mississippi-based Butler Snow this week solidified it’s position as the fifth-largest law firm in Nashville by adding 13 attorneys from litigation firm Walker Tipps & Malone. The move marks the firm’s second expansion wave after bringing more than three-dozen attorneys over from Miller & Martin in 2011. "We want to be here in force, much like so many other businesses and law firms," Donald Clark Jr., Butler Snow's chairman, told the Nashville Business Journal. "As we build out our firm through the Southeast and other parts of the country, Nashville is a major opportunity."

Democratic lawmakers today put forward legislation to resurrect Insure Tennessee and also bring full Medicaid expansion to the table, the Nashville Business Journal reports. State Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, has introduced two Senate joint resolutions and one bill aimed at doing so. The first resolution would allow Republican Gov. Bill Haslam to pursue his Insure Tennessee proposal in the regular General Assembly session. The second aims to authorize full expansion of the state's Medicaid program, according to a news release.

If the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down tax credits for people buying health insurance on the federal exchange, about 8.2 million Americans in 34 states could lose their coverage under the Affordable Care Act. According to the Times News, most of the people likely to be affected are white, employed, low- to middle-class residents in the South.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, this week re-introduced the State Marriage Defense Act, which would prevent the federal government from asserting its own definition of marriage on the states. It would effectively nullify the marriages of same-sex couples who married in one state and moved to another state where such unions were illegal. Currently, the federal government recognizes and provides many benefits for same-sex couples married in a state where gay marriage is legal, no matter where they move. The bill comes as the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case this year that will decide whether same-sex marriages are constitutionally protected. WCYB has more.

The Nashville Business Journal hosted a mayoral candidate panel discussion yesterday morning during which the seven men and women vying for the top job laid out why they should be Nashville's next mayor. The candidates also touched on jobs, the economy, affordable housing and transportation. Election Day is Aug. 6.