In a turn of events that can only be described as full-on authoritarianism, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in Tennessee voted Thursday to expel Democrats Justin Jones and Justin Pearson for participating in a protest against gun violence last week, following a school shooting in Nashville that left three children and three adults dead. Republicans had also targeted, and tried to expel, representative Gloria Johnson, but failed to garner the necessary votes. Asked why she thought she survived, Johnson told a reporter it was pretty obvious.
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As Politico notes, the trio’s specific “offense” was “joining protesters who gathered in Nashville…to call for gun safety reform,” approaching the lectern “without being called on by House GOP leadership,” and toting “a bullhorn to lead chants on the House floor,” which temporarily caused a suspension in legislative business. In a typical bit of Republican shamelessness, House Speaker Cameron Sexton likened their actions to “an insurrection.” (Just to be clear: The group’s protest did not cause lawmakers to flee the scene in fear of their lives, involve chants calling for anyone to be hanged, or result in the deaths of five people, like a certain Washington, DC, riot did in 2021.)
Jones was expelled in a vote of 72-25. Ahead of his expulsion, the freshman lawmaker castigated his GOP colleagues for doing nothing to stop gun violence. “Your flexing of false power has awakened a generation of people who will let you know your time is up,” he said, per Politico. Like Republicans across the country, those in Tennessee have rejected pleas for tighter restrictions on firearms. Instead, they’ve focused on measures that do not go to the root of the problem; on Thursday, the Tennessee House passed a bill that would require schools to, per The New York Times, “require schools to conduct annual drills, keep all entrance doors locked, and install a mobile panic-alert system.”
On Thursday afternoon, shortly before he was expelled, Jones told a reporter: “To expel voices of opposition and dissent is a signal of authoritarianism and it is very dangerous.”
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In a letter sent to Tennessee House members on Tuesday, Pearson wrote: “I recognize that diid not follow decorum this past Thursday on the House floor and I take full responsibility and accountability for my actions.” But “when I saw thousands of people — mostly children and teenagers — protesting and demanding action from us after the slaying of six innocent people, including three 9-year-old children, it was impossible to sit idly by and continue with business as usual.”
