Liberal Democrats Laud Expelled Tennessee Lawmakers as ‘Voices of Change’ in Gun Control Debate as City Leaders Move To Reinstate Them

Two legislators will rejoin the Tennessee house of representatives after being expelled for their participation in a raucous gun control protest on the chamber’s floor. Their protest, after the Covenant school shooting at Nashville, and their subsequent removal has made national stars of some little-known lawmakers. Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were removed from the house of representatives by their Republican colleagues on April 6 after disrupting a floor debate in violation of house rules. Mr. Jones was reinstated following a unanimous vote by the Nashville metropolitan council, which has the power to appoint a member following an expulsion. Mr. Pearson was reinstated by the Shelby county commission at Memphis on Wednesday. A third lawmaker, Representative Gloria Johnson, survived her expulsion vote after apologizing, but adamantly defends her two colleagues who were removed. Messrs. Jones and Pearson will be reinstated only temporarily, after which they will have to run in a special election. Their deep-blue districts likely guarantee a victory for both men. Press figures and national Democrats have made the so-called Tennessee Three a cause célèbre since the incident.A former White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said on her new MSNBC show that the expulsion had nothing to do with the “arcane” rules of the house, but rather “this was about silencing effective Black messengers speaking hard truths.” Another Biden administration alumna who now anchors an MSNBC program, Symone Sanders, sat for an interview with the Tennessee Three during which she said she was “unsettled” by those calling on the representatives to behave more properly once reinstated. Mr. Jones then called their expulsion a “public hanging” and said the Republican representatives were implying the two Black men were “uppity negroes.”Mr. Jones has a history of disrupting events at the Tennessee state house. When he was 23, he was banned from the state capitol for assaulting the house speaker at the time, Glen Casada. While protesting the presence of a bust of the first grand wizard of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Mr. Jones allegedly threw a cup of hot coffee at Mr. Casada. The charges were later dropped. Ms. Johnson, who is white, also said she survived the vote simply because of her age and race, adding that she hears her Republican colleagues making “racist statements all the time.”On April 7, the day after the expulsion vote, Vice President Harris traveled to Nashville to meet with the three lawmakers and deliver a speech defending their actions. The lawmakers also spoke to President Biden, who “thanked them for their leadership,” according to a White House statement. A singer and civil rights activist, Joan Baez — who marched with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. throughout the 1950s and 1960s — also traveled to Tennessee to rally with the three representatives. On the day he was sworn in, Mr. Jones led a large march on the state capitol alongside thousands of protesters.Mr. Jones and his two colleagues remained defiant even after the expulsion, saying that they were engaging in “good trouble” — a phrase often used by a late congressman, John Lewis, who was arrested more than 40 times during his involvement in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.The speaker of the Tennessee house, Cameron Sexton, said that the expulsion had nothing to do with free expression or peaceful protest, but rather the actions of the three representatives who violated the chamber’s rules. A video showed the three lawmakers storming onto the floor during debate and taking the podium in violation of the rules, one of them with a bullhorn in hand.“They broke several rules of decorum and procedure on the House floor,” Mr. Sexton wrote on Twitter, detailing the exact rules the members had broken. “Their actions and beliefs that they could be arrested on the House floor were an effort, unfortunately, to make themselves the victims. In effect, those actions took away the voices of the protestors.”Tennessee’s house majority leader, William Lambert, and the Republican caucus chairman, Jeremy Faison, said in a joint statement that the expelled pair will be welcomed back into the house. “Tennessee’s constitution provides a pathway back for expulsion,” the statement said. “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.”

Liberal Democrats Laud Expelled Tennessee Lawmakers as ‘Voices of Change’ in Gun Control Debate as City Leaders Move To Reinstate Them

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