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"We had just had this mass shooting, and he only wanted to elevate the voices of those people. For a simple rule violation, we have elevated this to the highest level of admonishment. That’s not democracy." "Your extreme measure is an attempt to subvert the will of voters who democratically elected us as representatives to speak and to passionately fight for them," Jones said. Gloria Johnson was the only member of the "Tennessee Three" to not be expelled from the legislature on Thursday, retaining her seat by a single vote. She has been stripped of her committee assignments and it's unclear if those will be restored. Justin Pearson, 28, was the second member of the group to be expelled from the House and another of its youngest members.
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Leaked audio from part of a recent meeting of Republican state representatives included several legislators angrily complaining about how Democrats had portrayed their actions as racist. Jones has sued over his expulsion and a temporary special session House rule that Republicans applied to silence Jones for part of one day in August. Jones, of Nashville, was not called on to speak about the bill before Republicans cut off debate and voted on it. It is "morally insane," Jones said, to prioritize punishing lawmakers over a procedural breach after a mass shooting at a school. Days earlier, a 28-year-old assailant shot and killed six people at an elementary school in Nashville, prompting crowds of students and parents to visit the legislature, urging new controls. Lawmakers began to take up the question of expelling three of their colleagues shortly after 1 p.m.
GOP donor retreat for 2024 hopefuls collides with Tennessee expulsions fallout
As Thursday’s proceedings showed, that includes sanctioning, reprimanding and expelling colleagues for a wide array of reasons. County commissions in their districts get to pick replacements to serve until a special election can be scheduled and they could opt to choose Jones and Pearson. Johnson, a retired teacher, said her concern about school shootings was personal, recalling a day in 2008 when students came running toward her out of a cafeteria because a student had just been shot and killed. Banishment is a move the chamber has used only a handful times since the Civil War.
Parents take a stand during protests
It was an unprecedentedly political expulsion vote, as the House had not expelled a member since the 2018 expulsion of Rep. Jeremy Durham, R-Franklin, over sexual misconduct allegations involving nearly two dozen women. While Republicans sought to keep the focus of Thursday’s proceedings on the disruption that protest had caused in the House and the rules that it had broken, Democrats attempted to keep a spotlight on the issue of gun reform legislation. In his address outside the Capitol, Pearson read the names of those killed and referenced another mass shooting on Monday at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky, in which five people were killed and eight others were injured. Republicans hold a 75-seat supermajority in the chamber and needed only 66 votes to expel the lawmakers, which they did for former Reps. Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson. Before the vote, Jones, Pearson and Johnson noted that if they were expelled, more than 200,000 Tennesseans would lose the representatives they lawfully elected last fall.
Two Expelled Tennessee Democrats Win Back Their Seats - TIME
Two Expelled Tennessee Democrats Win Back Their Seats.
Posted: Thu, 03 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Tennessee lawmakers to vote whether to expel 3 Democrats over gun control protest
An expulsion does not disqualify a former representative from running for office, which could mean one of the expelled lawmakers could be appointed interim, run for reelection and be reseated in the General Assembly within months. After Pearson was expelled in the final vote of the night, the chamber exploded in a cacophony of yells and chants, drowning out the ceremonial reading of his expulsion result. Two protestors unfurled a handmade banner reading, "Rural TN Against Fascist GOP," which was ripped down by a staff member. Rather than empty the galleries of screaming protesters, House leadership adjourned and lawmakers streamed out after the seven-hour session. As the idea of arming teachers began to gain support inside the General Assembly, gun control advocates and families began swarming to the Capitol to show their opposition. During the final vote, protesters chanted “Blood on your hands” and many members of the public who oppose the bill harangued Republican lawmakers after the vote, leading House Speaker Cameron Sexton to order the galleries cleared.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee teachers and staff will be allowed to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds under legislation signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee on Friday. On Monday, protesters took to the statehouse chanting, "let her speak!" as a debate about a separate bill that would allow students to misgender or deadname transgender people without disciplinary action went on. Deadnaming refers to the use of a transgender person's name from before they transitioned, such as their birth name.
"Weaponizing legislative discipline reveals a concerning level of democratic dysfunction," said Seifter, who is the co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She added, "it suggests that more attention should focus on state-level government." Jones said the first thing he plans to do when he gets back in the House is to continue to fight for gun reform. The vote by Nashville Metropolitan Council on Monday to appoint Jones passed unanimously. He took the oath on the steps of the state capitol in Nashville surrounded by a crowd of people.
Key takeaways from the Tennessee House session where Republicans expelled two Black Democrats
"I was standing for those young people ... many of whom can't even vote yet. Many of whom are disenfranchised. But all of whom are terrified by the continued trend of mass shooting plaguing our state and plaguing this nation." Jeremy Durham, a Republican, was expelled after reports detailed allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct with several women over the course of his time in office, according to reporting by ABC affiliate WTVC. After hours of fiery debate in Tennessee's House of Representatives on Thursday, two Democratic lawmakers were expelled.
Congressional Black Caucus welcomes reinstatement of Rep. Justin Jones
Protesters in the gallery began chanting "fascists! fascists!" and shook their fists in the air. One woman refused to do so and was forcibly removed resulting in her arrest on two counts of assault on a first responder when she pushed one trooper and hit another in the leg. House leadership likened the representatives' behavior to an "insurrection," a characterization House Democrats decried last week. Sexton said staff reported that state troopers were having difficulty counting the number of empty seats to allow more people into the gallery. Some protesters have complained security is not allowing people to return to the House gallery after they leave.
But the House failed by one vote to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to kick Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, out of the chamber. The effort to expel Johnson failed on a vote, as chants of "Gloria! Gloria!" rang out in the House chamber. The people of @brotherjones_ and @Justinjpearson’s districts were disenfranchised today.
Two attorneys, both former House members themselves, also argued on Johnson's behalf, saying while Johnson stood in support of her two freshman colleagues, she did not lead the chants with a bullhorn. The expulsion proceedings threatened to strip more than 200,000 Tennesseans of their elected representation and mark just the fourth time since the end of the Civil War in which the House ousted sitting lawmakers. No House member has ever been removed from elected office for simply violating decorum rules. The historic, partisan expulsion process has roiled political tensions as the state continues to grapple with the deadliest school shooting in its history.
First, he argued that as a freshman representative, he has not been made aware of all of the House rules and to what and when they apply. He called the majority Republican membership, many of whom have said they would vote to expel the members, a "lynch mob" that is eager to enact the "ultimate punishment" against himself, Johnson and Pearson. "I will proudly walk back into that chamber if I'm if I'm given the opportunity either through a special appointment, or through running through a special election to fight for my constituents because that's what I took an oath to do," Jones said. Shulman said the Nashville Metro Council will move swiftly on Monday to suspend rules in order to vote Jones back to his House seat. "I believe that this whole process has been unconstitutional," Jones said, calling the GOP lawmakers out by name for what he believes was a racially motivated political attack. “There’s actually you know, 71 I think, or 70 of the members who, after looking at what took place today, they voted to expel one of them,” Faison continued.
As the vote concluded, spectators in the gallery yelled “shame on you” and “fascists! The Tennessee Constitution allows a county governing body to appoint an interim representative in the case of a vacancy, an authority General Assembly Republicans could not easily revoke. House Republicans publicly scolded Pearson after he wore a traditional West African dashiki on the House floor on his first day in office, which Pearson reminded his colleagues of on Thursday night.
The appointments are interim, though both Jones and Pearson plan to run in special elections for the seats later this year. State Rep. Justin Pearson, of Memphis, was sworn in Thursday outside the Statehouse. Fielding questions from lawmakers, Johnson reminded them that she did not raise her voice nor did she use the bullhorn — as did the other two, both of whom are new lawmakers and among the youngest members in the chamber. “We called for you all to ban assault weapons, and you respond with an assault on democracy,” he said.
The shooting and aftermath have pushed some, including Republican Gov. Bill Lee, to support some changes. The Nashville Metropolitan Council took only a few minutes Monday to restore Jones to office. Last year, the state Senate expelled Democrat Katrina Robinson after she was convicted of using about $3,400 in federal grant money on wedding expenses instead of her nursing school. However, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican who voted to expel all three, denied that race was at play and said Johnson’s arguments might have swayed other members.
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