The Speaker of the House of Representatives to the Tennessee House voted to expel two black Democrats from the chamber where she broke a decorum
It is located in Montana. The Speaker of the House in Montana has refused to allow a lawmaker to speak.
Zephyr is the first woman to be elected to the legislature. She was not allowed to speak since last Tuesday when she told supporters of the bill to ban gender-affirming care for children that she hoped they would see blood on their hands.
Leading U.S. medical groups, including the American Medical Association, say gender-affirming care is “medically-necessary, evidence-based care that improves the physical and mental health of transgender and gender-diverse people.”
The Speaker canceled the House’s floor session. Speaking to the media, Regier did not explain why he did not take questions, but he did dispute the idea that Zephyr was silenced, saying that she can apologize and again be recognized on the floor.
The only person who doesn’t let Rep. Zephyr speak is him, he said.
According to the Democrats, the Speaker has the power to block her speech indefinitely because she broke rules against using accusatory language on the floor.
While the House has yet to take formal steps to expel Zephyr, the debate around decorum comes just about three weeks after House Republicans in Tennessee voted to expel two young Black Democrats, Rep. Justin J. Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones, from that chamber.
The speaker of the Tennessee House said that lawmakers violated decorum when they used a megaphone on the floor during a gun-reform protest. In just a few days’ time, both lawmakers were voted back into their seats by local councils.
Many Republican lawmakers left the chambers, while many in the Democratic caucus stayed behind and watched. She stayed at her desk, holding her microphone over her head and trying to amplify the protests.
Fifteen minutes later, the last of the protestors were arrested and the doors to the chamber were locked. Seven people were charged with criminal trespassing and transported to Lewis and Clark County jail, according to Sheriff Leo Dutton. All were released in a few hours.
The community shouted “let her speak” as he waited outside the Capitol with the arrested. “Because when they stood up, they are standing on behalf of democracy. They are making sure their electeds are heard. That the causes they care about don’t get silenced.”
Republican leaders said they “condemn violence and will always stand for civil debate,” after Monday’s events.
Kim Abbott, the House Minority Leader, said that “protests like that are part of this process.” She disputed Republicans’ characterization of the events, saying protestors were non-violent. They had the right to come in a peaceful protest.
“Leadership has chosen to abandon any notion of integrity,” Gwen Nicholson, a Missoula resident, told the crowd, “instead opting for underhanded, anti-democratic cheap tricks to silence speech they don’t like in order to pass shameful laws meant to limit freedom, oppress minorities and consolidate power among a select few.”
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Late last year in an interview, Zephyr told NPR one reason why she decided to run for office in Montana: “Watching bills pass through the legislature by one vote, I cried and I thought to myself, ‘I bet I could change one heart, I bet I could change one mind. We need representation in that room. I’m going to try to get in there.’ “
Even though work in the House is paused for one day, members are still under a tight deadline. Montana’s Constitution says it must adjourn in eight days, and they’ve yet to finish piecing together a budget, typically their most important task.
After the Republicans in Tennessee voted to kick out two Black legislators for disrupting a session, Democrats in Georgia gathered on the internet to find out more about it.
“This is not a time for us to shrink back,” state Rep. Kim Schofield said. “This is a time of change.” If you don’t think it can happen in Georgia, you are sadly mistaken.”
While the two Tennessee Democrats are now back in their seats, other parts of the country are worried that the debacle over decorum may cause problems in their own state Legislatures.
Beverly said Georgia’s Republican Legislature applies decorum rules and norms differently, like adopting new maps over the protests of the delegations that represent those communities.
Park Cannon was arrested at the capitol in 2021. She knocked on the locked door of the room that was used for the Republican Governor’s news conference to complain about the new election laws.
Julian Bond, a young Black civil rights leader, had just been elected to a Georgia House seat. He refused to leave the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, despite a critical statement on Vietnam War they had released. The legislature didn’t seat him.
Go further back in time, and there’s the story of the “Original 33.” They were the first African Americans to be elected to Georgia’s legislature. Then, white lawmakers from both parties banded together to have them expelled.
A professor of political science at the University of Washington believes that what’s happening in legislatures is much more about national politics than it is about the politics of Georgia, Tennessee, Montana or any other state.
“We’re now seeing a huge amount of national tug of war over the direction of the country happening at the state level because that’s where the political opportunities are,” he says.
The author wrote a book called Laboratories against Democracy. While Democratic and Republican majorities have the power to pass partisan priorities, one party has been more prone to break the norm.
There were moves in Tennessee and Montana this year. Two Democrats in Florida were arrested for protesting abortion restrictions. And in Oklahoma, a nonbinary lawmaker was kicked off committees.
The two Democrats interrupted the floor session with a megaphone as they urged their colleague to consider stronger gun laws after the Nashville school shooting.
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The moves in other statehouses do not apply in Georgia, according to the House Majority Leader. Plus he says Republicans don’t even have the votes to unilaterally remove a member.
“Georgia’s House of Representatives believes it’s important for members to vote according to their consciences, and that’s how a legislative body ought to work,” he says.
Democrats in Georgia acknowledge Tennessee may be an extreme example. But they say the majority also exploits their dominance to shove through legislation that doesn’t match the views of the state’s residents, like loosening gun laws, severely restricting abortion and making it harder to vote.
This can be made possible by the help of the gerrymander. Only five statehouse races in Georgia were competitive in the last election.
The Democrats think that Republicans are unwilling to consider popular proposals to strengthen Georgia’s gun laws. So much so that getting a Hearing on her bill requiring safe firearm storage around children was a big deal.