Tennessee Democrats Face House Ejection Vote After Gun Control Protest

NASHVILLE, Tennessee, April 6 (Reuters) – Republicans who control the Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday ousted two House Democrats for violating decorum during a gun control rally at the state house last week following the latest shooting in a school.

In an extraordinary move, when lesser forms of discipline, including censure, were available, the vast Republican majority voted to remove Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two young black lawmakers.

The resolution to expel a third Democratic member who was with them during the protest on the House floor, Gloria Johnson, a white woman, fell short by one vote.

That protest came four days after a Nashville school shooting killed three 9-year-old boys and three school staff members.

Republican Reps. Andrew Farmer, Gino Bulso and Bud Hulsey had introduced the three resolutions Monday to oust their Democratic colleagues, saying they broke decorum by leading the rally in the House pit.

The House voted 72-25 along party lines to remove Jones and 69-26 to remove Pearson. But Johnson was saved when the vote to oust her came out 65-30. Republicans control the chamber 75-23 and needed 66 votes for ouster.

Johnson may have been spared because, unlike Jones and Pearson, she did not use a megaphone to lead chants during last Thursday’s protest, when hundreds of protesters flooded the state house.

But race came up several times during the often tense debate.

“You cannot ignore the racial dynamics of what happened today. Two young black legislators are ousted and a white woman is not. That is a statement in itself,” Pearson told reporters after the vote.

President Joe Biden condemned the proceedings, tweeting that they were “shocking, undemocratic and unprecedented.”

Only two Tennessee state representatives have been ousted by their peers since the Civil War era: one in 1980 for soliciting a bribe in exchange for blocking legislation and another in 2016 after being accused of sexual misconduct by numerous women. Both ousters were carried out with overwhelming bipartisan votes.

The Democratic Party in Tennessee said it was raising funds to support special elections for any of those voted out.

The three Democratic lawmakers led protesters on the House floor to demand tougher gun laws. The Republicans in the resolutions calling for their removal accused the three of engaging in “disorderly conduct” and said they “knowingly and intentionally brought disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives through their individual and collective actions.”

Hundreds of protesters again gathered outside the State House in the rain Thursday and filled the gallery above the House floor with signs calling for stricter gun control.

They erupted in applause when Johnson was saved from expulsion, then chanted “shame on you” and “no justice, no peace” after Pearson was expelled.

Johnson, Jones and Pearson have said that participating in the protest was within their First Amendment rights: the constitutional right to free speech. They, along with other Democratic members, also said Thursday that Republican leaders have used their absolute majority to silence speech on the chamber, and Johnson said that was one reason they acted as they did last week.

Before being expelled, Jones had denounced the proceedings.

“What we see here today is a lynch mob gathered not to lynch me but our democratic process,” Jones said.

“At no time was there any violence,” Jones added, referring to the demonstration he and his colleagues led on the chamber grounds last week. “At no time did we encourage violence. In fact, what we were doing was calling for an end to the gun violence that terrorizes our children day after day.”

But Bulso, a Republican author of one of the ouster resolutions, said it was clear to him that Jones “wants to be ousted.”

“He and two other representatives did carry out a riot,” Bulso said. “Not expelling him would simply invite him and his colleagues to continue participating in the riot in the House.”

Reporting by Cheney Orr in Nashville and Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Edited by Donna Bryson, Mark Porter, Diane Craft, and Lincoln Feast.

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