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Jones has called for gun reform in the past

NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/opinion/tennessee-house-nashville-shooting.html

Tennessee Democrat Repr’esentant Justin Jones, a Black Democrat, and a Cause for Common Sense Gun Reform

After being expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives for trying to hold a demonstration on the chamber floor to protest gun control, the lawmaker was back in the house Monday and says that he’ll keep campaigning for gun reform.

“The first thing I do when I walk into this building as a representative is to continue that call for common sense gun legislation,” Democrat Justin Jones said as he stood on the steps of the Capitol after his reinstatement Monday.

Jones and another black Democrat, Justin Pearson, were kicked out of the legislature last week after a protest on the chamber floor spurred by the mass shooting at a Nashville Christian school.

It appears both Jones and Pearson qualify to run for their seats again in the special election. The state constitution says that the legislative body of the replaced legislator may choose an interim successor.

Jones told the crowd that democracy will not bekilled in the comfort of silence after marching back to the Capitol.

Jones told CNN Monday evening that all the bills would have to do with that.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/11/us/tennessee-democrat-representatives-expelled-tuesday/index.html

The Tennessee Democratic Representatives Expelled from the House on Monday (after Jones and Berman) – The Movement to End Assault Weapons Doesn’t Matter

The Tennessee House Republicans released a statement on Monday, saying, “Tennessee’s constitution provides a pathway back from expulsion. Should any expelled member be reappointed, we will welcome them. Like everyone else, they are expected to follow the rules of the House as well as state law.”

The District 86 seat is still vacant as Pearson was expelled in a hasty manner without consideration of other corrective action methods, announced Commission Chairman Mickell Lowery.

“To anyone who has doubted the South, anyone who’s doubted the power of Tennesseans to advocate for an end to gun violence, anybody who’s doubted the movement to end assault weapons – anybody who’s doubted the movement, here’s your answer: The movement still lives,” said Pearson said as he stood on the steps of the Capitol alongside Jones Monday.

Pearson told Berman that the celebration of Jones’ return was overshadowed by another mass shooting, which happened less than a month after the school shooting in Tennessee that caused lawmakers to protest.

Legislators and people like the Speaker of the House are honored at this time of year. Pearson said the Republican party in Tennessee and across the South isn’t doing enough to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.

The next general election in Tennessee is 12 months away and a special election will need to be held to fill the seats.

If local governing bodies decide to send Jones and Pearson back to the chamber, the Speaker of the House will not object to the appointments.

The speaker’s office told CNN the two governing bodies will make a decision about who to appoint to the seats. The two individuals will be seated as representatives.

Members can be kicked out for disorderly behavior, but cannot be kicked out for the same offense again.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/11/us/tennessee-democrat-representatives-expelled-tuesday/index.html

What Happened to the Left after the Donald Trump Show? The South is not the only place where we live, but where we’re going

The attorneys for the ousted representatives sent a letter saying their removal was unconstitutional.

The House was urged not to take any further retributive actions by Scott J. Crosby, who is representing Jones and Pearson.

“Any partisan retributive action, such as the discriminatory treatment of elected officials, or threats or actions to withhold funding for government programs, would constitute further unconstitutional action that would require redress,” the letter says.

While the world was watching the former president surrender to authorities in a New York City courthouse last week, I was watching Nashville and Raleigh. The capital cities of North Carolina and South Carolina, which are close to each other, have experienced political unrest because of the Donald Trump Show.

We prefer the horizon because we bury people in the South that we don’t care about. It is where we have put people who are poor and sick. It is where we put the social problems that we are willing to accept in exchange for individual opportunity in places that are more sophisticated. But the South is still a laboratory for the political disenfranchisement that works just as well in Wisconsin as it does in Florida. Americans are not as far away from the graves of other people as we think.

The Nashville Elementary Shooting: A Case Study for Public Protests of Conservative Education, Education, and Gun Reforms in the U.S.

Six people were killed in a mass shooting in Nashville on March 27. Three of the murdered were children, each 9 years old. The shooting happened at a Christian academy so it must matter to one’s outrage. It shouldn’t. But I mention it because this is America.

Nashville is a politically centrist, demographically and economically diverse city that self-consciously manufactures conservative culture exports in a deeply conservative state. The town was coming off protests around a massively undemocratic ban on drag shows. The two events are not related. Because after the shooting two weeks ago, Tennesseans were primed for civic action. And civic action is what we saw when people lined up outside the G.O.P.-dominated House demanding sensible gun reforms. Three democratic lawmakers — Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson — joined the protesters, many of them children not that much older than the victims in last month’s massacre.

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