Why the Tennessee House is going to make the leap to protect the children of the victims of the Nashville school shooting: A case for disciplinary actions of three black legislators
The Tennessee House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Thursday on removing from office three Democratic lawmakers who protested on the chamber floor with a bullhorn to call for gun reform following last month’s school shooting in Nashville – and now are accused of breaking House rules.
On Monday, three resolutions were filed seeking the expulsions of Jones, Pearson and Johnson. The committee assignments of the three members were removed after the protest.
In a place like Nashville where six people were killed in a mass shooting last week, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not going to take any actions to rein in this proliferation of weapons of war.
He said this is more than just about losing his job, as the party he belongs to is acting like an authoritarian.
Following the three representatives’ demonstrations last Thursday, Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton called their actions “unacceptable” and argued that they broke “several rules of decorum and procedure on the House floor.”
The actions of Democratic lawmakers have detracted from the process at the capitol when peaceful protestors have their voices heard on any issue.
“In effect, those actions took away the voices of the protestors, the focus on the six victims who lost their lives, and the families who lost their loved ones,” Sexton said in a series of tweets Monday.
“We cannot allow the actions of the three members to distract us from protecting our children. We will get through this together, and it will require talking about all solutions,” Sexton said.
The resolutions, filed by Republican Reps. Bud Hulsey, Gino Bulso and Andrew Farmer, said that the lawmakers “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor” to the House.
On Tuesday, Pearson publicly shared a letter he sent to House members, taking responsibility for “not following decorum” on the House floor while defending his actions.
“If this House decides to expel me for exercising our sacred first amendment right to help elevate the voices in our community who want to see us act to prevent gun violence, then do as you feel you must,” Pearson wrote.
Kathy Sinback, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee called the move a targeted expulsion of two Black legislators without due process.
“Their expulsion sets a dangerous new precedent for political retribution,” a statement from the party said. The democratic fabric of our state is at risk due to the fact that a majority of the Legislature can expel an opposing party member if they please.
“Instead of rushing to expel members for expressing their ethical convictions about crucial social issues,” Sinback said, “House leadership should turn to solving the real challenges facing our state.”
Tennessee Republicans’ ruthless use of their state House supermajority to expel two young Black lawmakers for breaching decorum exposed a torrent of political forces that are transforming American politics at the grassroots.
The GOP action after the lawmakers had led a gun control protest from the House floor in response to the Nashville school shooting created a snapshot of how two half of a diverse nation are being pulled apart.
A day of soaring tensions inside and outside the state House chamber thrust the Volunteer State into the national spotlight in an extraordinary political coda to the mass shooting in which six people, including three 9-year-olds, were gunned down.
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The expulsion of the Democrats, who had tens of thousands of their voters in attendance, was due to violating the chamber’s rules and effectively canceled out their votes.
Gloria Johnson, a White woman, was spared expulsion after Republicans failed to muster the needed two-thirds majority. The discrepancy raised suggestions of racial discrimination and made an acrimonious day even uglier.
Democrats interrupted people’s business with their protest, arguing that democracy can’t work if lawmakers refuse to abide by the rules. The Democrats have long accused Republicans of violating their right to free expression and dissent because of the GOP supermajority.
The clash highlighted the deeply-partisan nature of the debate over how to respond to mass murders, which pass with little or no significant action to stop them.
Although it did pass a measure intended to enhance school security, the Tennessee state House essentially decided to use its near unchecked power to protect its behavioral rules rather than take any action to make it harder for mass killers to get deadly weapons. In a deep-red state like Tennessee, this is not a surprise. The anger and desperation of lawmakers like Pearson and Jones on Thursday, reflected by the many protesters at the state capitol, reflects increasing anger among the majority of Americans who are frustrated by the Republican Congress’ inability to pass stricter gun laws.
He implored the Tennessee legislators to act to stop further school shootings. “Just listen to us, there is absolutely no reason you should have assault rifles available to citizens in the public. It serves absolutely no purpose and it brings death and destruction on children,” Foster told CNN’s Ryan Young.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/07/politics/political-showdown-tennessee/index.html
The racial backdrop of the March 30th congressional protest against the expulsion of a black man in the U.S. Capitol
The increasing radicalization of the Donald Trump-era Republican Party is one of the trends that have been underscored by the severe punishments meted out by the legislature for a rules infraction. Critics think that the GOP is abusing its power in order to destroy the democratic rights of millions of Americans.
The expulsions looked like a party dispensing with opponents and positions it didn’t agree with – a perspective Pearson voiced when he accused the GOP of acting to suppress ideas it would prefer not to listen to and questions it wouldn’t answer.
One Republican, state Rep. Gino Bulso, said that Jones – with his dramatic self-defense in the well of the chamber on Thursday – had made the case for his ejection because he accused the House of acting dishonorably.
“He and two other representatives effectively conducted a mutiny on March the 30th of 2023 in this very chamber,” Bulso said. State House Speaker Cameron Sexton had previously compared the gun control protest to the mob attack by Trump’s supporters on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
This was an absurd analogy. The protest in the Tennessee chamber did disrupt the normal order, but it wasn’t designed to cause a riot like the Capitol riot did. In a riotous political age, the behavior of the three Democratic lawmakers was not unusual. US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and other Republicans, for instance, heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address this year. The ex-president this week attacked a New York judge as biased, and made fun of his family, after being charged with a crime.
The racial backdrop of Thursday’s vote could not be ignored after Johnson was reprieved by a single vote. She told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota that she believed race helped explain the differing outcomes.
Johnson is a 60-year-old white woman and she has two young Black men with her. She added that Pearson and Jones were questioned in a “demeaning way” by lawmakers before their expulsion.
“I am not saying race wasn’t (the reason) – but I haven’t looked at the numbers to see if gender might not have had a play in it, and also maybe some seniority, and also some folks that were on a committee with her,” Cohen told CNN’s Bianna Golodryga.
Since Pearson and Jones argued that hundreds of thousands of Black Americans in the state were being silenced by a white Republican majority, the question is especially acute.
Pearson and Jones are symbols of the reality that growing liberal and racially diverse cities and suburbs are clashing with legislators dominated by Republicans from more rural areas.
The speeches by Pearson and Jones may serve as a template for a new brand of activism by younger citizens because of their references to the civil rights movement and their reception by the multi-racial protesters after they left the chamber.
The idea that the two young Black Americans didn’t know the right way to act in public life made for uncomfortable racial echoes as they implied they didn’t understand the proper way to act.
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It is very frightening for the nation to see what is happening here. Jones told Anderson Cooper that if he did not know about it he would think it was 1963.
This dynamic is playing out on multiple issues – including abortion, crime and voting rights – in states like Georgia and Texas. In Florida, meanwhile, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is using his big reelection win and GOP control of both chambers of the state legislature to drive home a radical America First-style conservative agenda that he’s using as a platform for a possible presidential campaign. There are Republicans who see the same trends in California.
In Tennessee, as Democratic state House Rep. Joe Towns put it, the GOP used a nuclear option by deploying their supermajority to suppress the ability of minority Democrats to speak.
Towns said that he wouldn’t use a sledgehammer to kill a gnat. “We should not go to the extreme of expelling our members for fighting for what many of the citizens want to happen, whether you agree with it or not.”
“We demand that democracy be for everybody, not just for rich White men in suits, not just for rich White people who got these positions of power perpetuating the status quo,” Pearson said.
Biden was upset with Republicans not doing more to prevent school shootings and described the expulsions as shocking.
Protesters packed the state Capitol on Thursday to denounce the expulsions of Reps. Justin Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson and to advocate for gun reform measures a little over a week after a mass shooting devastated a Nashville school.
The three Democrats led chants with a bullhorn on the House floor after a shooting at a Nashville private Christian school that killed five people, including three 9-year-olds.
Jones said he and the other lawmakers had been blocked from speaking about gun violence on the House floor that week, saying that their microphones were cut off whenever they raised the topic, according to CNN affiliate WSMV.
“It’s not possible for us to move forward with the way they were behaving in committee and on the House floor,” Faison said. “There’s got to be some peace.”
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Following their removal, pictures and profiles of Pearson and Jones have been pulled from the Tennessee General Assembly’s website and their districts have been listed as vacant.
Rep. Justin Pearson:District: 86Age: 28In office: 2023-Issues: Environmental, racial and economic justiceOf note: Successfully blocked oil pipeline from being built in south MemphisRecent awards: The Root’s 100 Most Influential Black Americans (2022)Rep. In office: 3 years, elected in the 90th District, issues: education, jobs, health care of note, which was organized in favor of Insure Tennessee. Justin Jones:District: 52Age: 27In office: 2023-Issues: Health care, environmental justiceOf note: Wrote “The People’s Plaza: 62 Days of Nonviolent Resistance” after helping to organize a 2022 sit-inRecent awards: Ubuntu Award for outstanding service, Vanderbilt Organization of Black Graduate and Professional Students (2019)
Interim House members can be appointed to fill the seats of expelled lawmakers until an election is held. It is possible that Jones and Pearson will be appointed back into their seats, according to Johnson.
Pearson hopes to get re-appointed to serve in the state legislature by the county commissioners, and many are upset about the anti-democratic behavior of the White supremacist-led state legislature.
Speaking to a crowd following their expulsion, Pearson and Jones insisted they would persist in advocate for gun control measures and encouraged protesters to continue showing up to the Capitol.
Two state representatives have been expelled by the House in the last 157 years. A representative was found guilty of accepting a bribe in 1980, while another was expelled in 2016 due to an allegation of sexual harassment.
She said it raises questions about the disparate treatment of Black representatives while continuing a shameful legacy of discrimination and suppression.