Tennessee House Votes to Expel Two of Three Democrats Involved in Gun-Control Protest
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Tennessee’s Republican-led House voted Thursday to expel state Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two of the three Democratic lawmakers who staged demonstrations on the House floor last week to call for gun control. A vote to expel state Representative Gloria Johnson, who was also involved in the protest, failed by one vote.
Jones was expelled by a vote of 72 to 25, while the House voted 69 to 26 to expel Pearson.
Before Pearson’s ousting, Johnson, who is white, suggested to reporters that the reason she was spared expulsion while Jones, who is black, was voted out “might have to do with the color of our skin.”
House Speaker Cameron Sexton stripped the three lawmakers of their committee assignments and placed the trio’s expulsion up for a vote after Jones got into a scuffle with a fellow lawmaker and all three encouraged raucous protesters in the House chambers last week. Protesters stood on a balcony within the chambers chanting, “Fascists! Fascists!” Demonstrators also blocked several entryways and exits, forcing state troopers to step in to assist members in moving throughout the building.
“What they did is they hijacked the House floor which has never been done in our history,” Sexton told National Review of the three lawmakers. “They pulled out a bullhorn. They weren’t recognized. They were ruled out of order and they led a protest from the House floor with a bullhorn to those in the balcony. They shut down the proceedings of the House. We had to go into recess due to their actions.”
“They disregarded the Sergeant at Arms asking them to leave the well at multiple occasions and they really didn’t stop yelling in their bullhorn until I had to clear out the balcony because of behavior that was caused blatantly by those three members,” continued Sexton. “Those actions that they did on the House floor deserve expulsion.”
The protests came in response to a shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, in which a 28-year-old female shooter who identified as transgender killed three children and three adults. Hale was a former student, though the motive for the shooting was not immediately clear. The victims ranged in age from nine years old to 61 years old. The shooter appeared to have meticulously planned out the attack with detailed maps and surveillance of the premises.
“This is not about expelling us as individuals,” Jones said during his defense on Thursday. “This is your attempt to expel the voices of the people from the people’s house. It will not be successful. Your overreaction, your flexing of false power has awakened a generation of people who will let you know that your time is up.”
Meanwhile, Sexton rejected claims that he and other Tennessee Republicans are silencing the lawmakers.
“They speak on bills more than anybody. They speak in committees more than anybody. They’ve had the same opportunities and they’re held to the same rules and standards as all other members in the House body, but what they did had nothing to do with the protests that went on inside or outside the chamber,” Sexton said. “It was about their actions inside the chamber and what they did to disrupt the proceedings.”
“When they came off the House floor, they asked their caucus if they were going to be arrested,” he said. “When you ask someone if you’re going to be arrested, then you know that you’ve done something very wrong.”
