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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee teachers and staff will be allowed to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds under legislation signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee on Friday. On Monday, protesters took to the statehouse chanting, "let her speak!" as a debate about a separate bill that would allow students to misgender or deadname transgender people without disciplinary action went on. Deadnaming refers to the use of a transgender person's name from before they transitioned, such as their birth name.
Rep. Justin Pearson embraces mother of Covenant student in House gallery
But the House failed by one vote to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to kick Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, out of the chamber. The effort to expel Johnson failed on a vote, as chants of "Gloria! Gloria!" rang out in the House chamber. The people of @brotherjones_ and @Justinjpearson’s districts were disenfranchised today.
What happens next? Will they get their seats back?
The Covenant shooting upended gun politics in Tennessee, as some conservatives newly called for firearm restrictions in a state that has been historically averse to passing them. After Lee signed an executive order to strengthen background checks, he broke with fellow Republicans in calling for red-flag laws and ordered the legislature to convene a special session on public safety. The expulsion of two elected Tennessee House members was, in part, made possible by the fact that Republicans hold a supermajority in that chamber, meaning they can push through most bills, rules changes and other orders of business unilaterally.
Legislators from 35 other states support Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones, Justin Pearson
"Weaponizing legislative discipline reveals a concerning level of democratic dysfunction," said Seifter, who is the co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She added, "it suggests that more attention should focus on state-level government." Jones said the first thing he plans to do when he gets back in the House is to continue to fight for gun reform. The vote by Nashville Metropolitan Council on Monday to appoint Jones passed unanimously. He took the oath on the steps of the state capitol in Nashville surrounded by a crowd of people.
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Johnson, who narrowly avoided expulsion, told reporters that the reason she kept her position and her Black colleagues didn't "might have to do with the color of our skin." Following the Thursday expulsion of Jones and Pearson, the legislators themselves -- among others -- criticized the move as "undemocratic." Still, Krishnakumar notes that in highly polarized times, elected officials are hunting for ways to score points with their supporters and one-up the opposing party. "Most expulsions have involved criminal conduct or abusive behavior, not suppression of dissent or targeting of political opponents," state constitutional law expert Miriam Seifter told NPR in an email.
Rain won't stop some protesters
Protesters in the gallery began chanting "fascists! fascists!" and shook their fists in the air. One woman refused to do so and was forcibly removed resulting in her arrest on two counts of assault on a first responder when she pushed one trooper and hit another in the leg. House leadership likened the representatives' behavior to an "insurrection," a characterization House Democrats decried last week. Sexton said staff reported that state troopers were having difficulty counting the number of empty seats to allow more people into the gallery. Some protesters have complained security is not allowing people to return to the House gallery after they leave.
The appointments are interim, though both Jones and Pearson plan to run in special elections for the seats later this year. State Rep. Justin Pearson, of Memphis, was sworn in Thursday outside the Statehouse. Fielding questions from lawmakers, Johnson reminded them that she did not raise her voice nor did she use the bullhorn — as did the other two, both of whom are new lawmakers and among the youngest members in the chamber. “We called for you all to ban assault weapons, and you respond with an assault on democracy,” he said.
As the vote concluded, spectators in the gallery yelled “shame on you” and “fascists! The Tennessee Constitution allows a county governing body to appoint an interim representative in the case of a vacancy, an authority General Assembly Republicans could not easily revoke. House Republicans publicly scolded Pearson after he wore a traditional West African dashiki on the House floor on his first day in office, which Pearson reminded his colleagues of on Thursday night.
Tennessee GOP could change law to prevent Democrat's simultaneous bids for Senate and statehouse - The Associated Press
Tennessee GOP could change law to prevent Democrat's simultaneous bids for Senate and statehouse.
Posted: Tue, 13 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Protesters listen from the Tennessee House gallery during a protest to demand action on gun reform laws and to support three lawmakers who faced an expulsion vote — in what experts call an extraordinary disciplinary move. Pearson and Jones were expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday after the two of them and Rep. Gloria Johnson staged a demonstration on the House floor calling for gun reform and leading chants with a bullhorn. On Monday, he returned to the legislature after a unanimous vote by the Nashville Metropolitan Council. Tennessee law allows local legislative bodies to appoint interim members to fill the seats of expelled lawmakers until an election is held. Jones, along with former Rep. Justin Pearson, was expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday after the two of them and fellow Democrat, Rep. Gloria Johnson, staged a demonstration on the floor calling for gun reform and leading chants with a bullhorn. The state House took up resolutions to expel three Democratic lawmakers over their actions interrupting a floor session and using a bullhorn to lead chants for gun control.
Two attorneys, both former House members themselves, also argued on Johnson's behalf, saying while Johnson stood in support of her two freshman colleagues, she did not lead the chants with a bullhorn. The expulsion proceedings threatened to strip more than 200,000 Tennesseans of their elected representation and mark just the fourth time since the end of the Civil War in which the House ousted sitting lawmakers. No House member has ever been removed from elected office for simply violating decorum rules. The historic, partisan expulsion process has roiled political tensions as the state continues to grapple with the deadliest school shooting in its history.
It was an unprecedentedly political expulsion vote, as the House had not expelled a member since the 2018 expulsion of Rep. Jeremy Durham, R-Franklin, over sexual misconduct allegations involving nearly two dozen women. While Republicans sought to keep the focus of Thursday’s proceedings on the disruption that protest had caused in the House and the rules that it had broken, Democrats attempted to keep a spotlight on the issue of gun reform legislation. In his address outside the Capitol, Pearson read the names of those killed and referenced another mass shooting on Monday at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky, in which five people were killed and eight others were injured. Republicans hold a 75-seat supermajority in the chamber and needed only 66 votes to expel the lawmakers, which they did for former Reps. Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson. Before the vote, Jones, Pearson and Johnson noted that if they were expelled, more than 200,000 Tennesseans would lose the representatives they lawfully elected last fall.
