NASHVILLE (AP) — Gov. Bill Haslam plans to take a more proactive approach when the General Assembly meets next year after struggling to catch up with the flood of legislative initiatives in his first session.

The Republican governor said during a recent breakfast interview with The Associated Press at a popular Nashville deli that assembling a Cabinet and crafting his first annual state spending proposal dominated his agenda after he took office in mid-January.

"For us, we're trying to get people hired, we're trying to get government rolling, and we're trying to get a budget put together," he said. "So that was obviously a major occupier of our time."

By the time he turned his attention to the Legislature, it was already plowing ahead at full steam and advancing bills his office wasn't ready to handle.

"If this was a football game, we were just walking into our locker room and the rest of the team was out on the field already, lining up for the kickoff," Haslam said. "They were ready to go."

"In hindsight, a lot of things kind of took off before we were ready to engage in them," he said.

Haslam said that in making the transition from Knoxville mayor to governor he was taken aback "at the volume of things you need to have an opinion on," particularly by a slew of legislative proposals that weren't part of his own agenda.

Republicans in November gained control of the governorship and the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction, but it took longer than expected for the two chambers and the executive branch to find their rhythm.

Among the more divisive issues that arose during the session were Republican proposals to strip teachers of their collective bargaining rights, make it a felony to follow some versions of the Islamic religious code known as Shariah and cancel a special arrangement with Amazaon.com to exempt the online retailer from collecting sales taxes for goods sold through its Tennessee warehouses.

None of those measures were sponsored by the governor, and he seemed surprised early in the session that he was often pressed by the public and the media to declare his stance on them.

After Haslam told reporters that it would be "disingenuous" to renege on the Amazon deal struck by his predecessor, the measure was quickly put off until at least next year.

Hundreds of people flocked to the Capitol to protest the bill they said unfairly targeted Muslims, but Haslam for the most part declined to weigh in, saying only that the measure had far to go before it reached his desk. The bill that finally passed made only minor changes to existing laws about assisting terrorists, but not before the state gained significant national attention and comment about attitudes in the Capitol toward Muslims.

The collective bargaining measure, meanwhile, stirred up multiple protests and significant ill will between Republicans and the state's largest teachers' union. The measure that ultimately passed in the waning days of the session replaced union negotiations with an untested concept called "collaborative conferencing."

The governor said he was caught off guard by the drive to curb union bargaining for teachers.

"What made collective bargaining hard is that people didn't see it coming," Haslam said. "It wasn't a topic in the elections; it never once came up in my two-year race or Senate or House races.

"And so I think people were like, 'Where did that come from?'" he said. "So maybe there wasn't a chance to talk through what we were trying to do there."

Then there were the perennial bills that when Democrats held more power were killed in legislative committees and with Republicans in firm control were suddenly either poised to pass or had even already been sent to the governor's desk for his signature. Haslam did not veto any bills in his first session.

"What surprised me is that there are so many bills, and there are those where you say, 'Well that one's never going to go anywhere,'" he said.

"But it may, or it may not — and so I do think maybe it is important to engage early and say, 'We really like this, or we really don't like that.'"

Haslam also has encouraged Republican legislators to stay closer to the party's call for smaller government by limiting the number of bills they introduce.

Haslam acknowledged it's inevitable that he will be asked to declare his position on key bills.

"If you think at some point in time you're going to be thrust into this argument, you have to make a calculated decision when the best time to do that is," he said.