#tennessee republicans

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Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones will reclaim his seat in the state House of Representatives with the backing of Nashville's Council, which voted to reappoint him four days after he was expelled for leading chants for gun reform with a bullhorn on the chamber floor.

Shortly after the council vote, Jones led a crowd of hundreds in a march to the Capitol, where he was sworn in, reported The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network.

In one of its first legislative actions following a shooting at a Nashville elementary school that killed six people, the House Republican supermajority ejected Jones with a 72-25 vote for defying House decorum — making him the first House member to be removed from elected office for a decorum violation.

Nashville's progressive-leaning council, responsible for filling the vacancy, overwhelmingly voted Jones back into the District 52 House seat Monday as an interim representative until a special election can be held to permanently fill the position. Jones is eligible to run for reelection.

House members called for the expulsion of Jones, D-Nashville, Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, and Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville — dubbed the "Tennessee Three" — after they approached the podium between bills during the session without being recognized, breaking chamber rules.

Pearson, who also used a bullhorn during the floor protest, was expelled in a 69-26 decision after hours of fierce debate. But the House failed by one vote to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to oust Johnson, who is white. Jones and Pearson are Black.

In Shelby County, at least one of 13 county commissioners has vowed to similarly reappoint Pearson to his House seat. The commission will meet Wednesday to consider the matter.

JONES RE-ENTERS HOUSE

Within minutes of taking the oath, Jones re-entered the House Chamber from which he had been expelled just four days before. Crowded galleries broke out in cheers as he walked to his desk on Johnson’s arm.

Protesters gathered at the legislative plaza on Monday to await the council's vote, chanting "No Justin. No peace."

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, NAACP BACK OUSTED LAWMAKERS

The expulsions drew a national outcry. President Joe Biden spoke by phone with the ousted lawmakers and Vice President Kamala Harris visited them in Nashville. The NAACP described the ousters as "horrific (but) not surprising."

"Extremist legislators, funded by corporate interests, have a history of undermining our democracy and failing to protect their constituents – especially in the South," the NAACP said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted that Republicans may think they won in Tennessee, "but their fascism is only further radicalizing and awakening an earthquake of young people, both in the South and across the nation."

WHY WERE TENNESSEE DEMOCRATS BEING EXPELLED?

Jones, Pearson and, Johnson dubbed the "Tennessee Three," faced expulsion for protesting over gun reform after three students and three staff members of The Covenant School were killed in a shooting in the school on March 27. Three days later, Jones and Pearson approached the House podium without being recognized, a breach of chamber rules. They led protesters in the galleries in several chants calling for gun reform.

"Their actions are and will always be unacceptable, and they break several rules of decorum and procedure on the House floor," Sexton claimed days later in a social media post. "Their actions and beliefs that they could be arrested on the House floor were an effort, unfortunately, to make themselves the victims."

Johnson has suggested race was likely a factor on why Jones and Pearson were ousted.

“I don’t think there’s a question how those two young, Black men were spoken to was in a different manner than the way I was spoken to," she said.

But GOP leaders have said Johnson's actions were less egregious – she was a less-active participant and had not used a megaphone. They said the expulsions had nothing to do with race but were necessary to avoid setting a precedent that lawmakers’ disruptions of House proceedings would be tolerated.

[tomorrowusa]

As ABC News reports, Tennessee Republicans are in full blown thoughts and prayers mode. It doesn’t get more stereotypically Republican than this.

Nashville school shooting updates: Governor says now's not time to talk legislation

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has called for prayers in the wake of Monday's deadly mass shooting at a Nashville elementary school, while noting that "there will be a time to talk about the legislation."

"I am calling on the people of Tennessee to pray. For the families of victims, for the Covenant family, for those courageous officers, for the family of the shooter, for those who are hurting and angry and confused," Lee, a Republican, said in a video address on Tuesday evening. "Prayer is the first thing we should do, but it's not the only thing."

GOP Gov. Lee says that prayer is “not the only thing”. The other thing of course is quietly reminding the NRA that Tennessee Republicans are sticking up for AR-15s at the expense of Tennessee schoolchildren.

NPR describes how Tennessee GOP gun culture helped the Covenant School shooter obtain a small arsenal.

How the Nashville shooter was able to legally buy 7 guns  

In the case of the Nashville shooting, police say the perpetrator was being treated for a mental health disorder, yet bought seven guns, including assault-style rifles, legally. Police say the shooter's parents thought their child should not have access, but Tennessee does not have a law to request guns are removed temporarily, commonly known as a red flag law. Democratic lawmakers have introduced that in the past, but Republicans didn't pass it.

The gerrymandered heavily GOP Tennessee legislature is where gun safety legislation goes to die – figuratively shot full of holes with assault rifles.

Republicans around the US in recent years have blamed mass shootings on mental illness. But when they had a chance to do something about guns and mental illness in Tennessee, they consciously chose to do nothing. 

For the GOP, action is never an option. Instead of making schools safer, they will fixate on far right culture war issues to juice up their gradually declining base.

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REVEALED: GOP leader, who voted to expel TN Three, resigns; found guilty of sexually harassing interns

Rep. Scotty Campbell resigned about six hours after NewsChannel 5 confronted him about sexual harassment allegations.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A member of GOP leadership in the Tennessee House of Representatives was recently found guilty of sexually harassing at least one legislative intern, likely two, by an ethics subcommittee acting in secret, NewsChannel 5 Investigates has learned.

About six hours after being confronted by NewsChannel 5 Investigates, Rep. Scotty Campbell gave up his seat in the Tennessee General Assembly.

Until now, Campbell, who served as vice chair of the House Republican Caucus and who recently voted to expel three Democrats who engaged in a gun violence protest on the House floor, had suffered no previous consequences as a result of his actions.

Despite accusations of sometimes extremely vulgar comments and other inappropriate advances, Republicans did not remove the 39-year-old East Tennessee lawmaker from his leadership position nor from his committee assignments.

But taxpayers are paying for his actions.

NewsChannel 5 has learned that potentially thousands of dollars have been spent to protect one victim, relocating her from the downtown apartment building where she and Campbell both had apartments, shipping her furniture back home in another part of the state and placing her in a downtown hotel for the remainder of her internship.

Legislative officials refused to say how much they've paid out, saying that information is confidential.

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Next, do Cam Sexton.

[ivovynckier]

A Kazakh journalist has arrived in Tennessee for cultural learnings of America.

[mysharona1987]

Hmmm……..

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APRIL 10, 2023: Four days after being unjustly expelled by racist Republicans in Tennessee, Justin Jones was sworn back into office

He then marched arm-in-arm, back to the Tennessee State House with thousands of cheering constituents and supporters

With his head and fist raised high, Rep. Justin Jones triumphantly returned to the Tennessee Chamber where he reclaimed the seat that voters elected him to

We love to see it.

[truth-has-a-liberal-bias]

A Tennessee Republican state lawmaker is arguing federal funds to feed school children from low-income families should not be accepted unless it can be proven that the program will increase test scores.

GOP Rep. John Ragan, who has a history of targeting school students from low-income households, told the legislature’s Joint Working Group on Federal Education Funding he was concerned about “tying ourselves to the federal government,” and inquired about the amount of “waste” in the federal program, according to a video clip posted by The Tennessee Holler. The Working Group’s purpose is to determine how the State of Tennessee can reject $1.8 billion in federal education funds. [...]

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These Republicans brought a hammer down on their fellow lawmakers for peacefully protesting. In doing so, they undid the voters’ will and essentially nullified the results of a free and fair election because they couldn’t stomach the dissent. It was a shocking display of anti-democratic vengeance by a party that enjoys near-complete control over the state, that even used its dominance to dismember one of the last remaining Democratic strongholds last redistricting cycle to further entrench itself. And yet, some mainstream outlets still struggled to resist both sides-ing the reality. Take this Associated Press headline: “Amid polarization, minority party lawmakers face penalties.” It’s hard to imagine a worse summation of current political dynamics. Based on the headline, you’d think it’d be a litany of Tennessee-esque vindictive actions taken by both parties. But look at the opening. “Oklahoma Republicans removed the state’s only nonbinary legislator from House committees after the lawmaker provided refuge to a transgender rights activist,” it reads. “In Florida, two Democratic leaders were arrested for participating in a protest over abortion restrictions. And in Tennessee, three Democratic House members are facing expulsion for using a bullhorn in the House chamber to show support for demonstrators demanding gun control.” Notice a pattern? In each example, Democrats are being punished for protesting, for publicly taking positions that Republicans oppose. And in the two examples where the punishments are political in nature, it’s Republicans who are doling them out. These are not examples of “polarization.” They’re examples of a Republican party on an authoritarian, rightward-march, growing increasingly comfortable taking an iron fist to democratically elected lawmakers who express opinions they oppose.

Much Of The Media Is Both Sides-ing, Obscuring The Truth In The GOP Tennessee Expulsion

Republicans are fascists. There are no good Republicans.

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Republican lawmakers in Tennessee are holding a series of votes Thursday on whether to expel Democratic legislators from the state House over their protests on the chamber floor against gun violence.

In the first vote, Republicans expelled Rep. Justin Jones -- the first time in state history that a House member has been removed for alleged chamber rules violations.

The second vote, to kick out Rep. Gloria Johnson, failed. Cheers erupted in the chamber with chants of "Gloria!" after the tally was announced.

The House voted 72-25 along party lines to expel Jones. The effort to remove Johnson fell short of the two-thirds majority needed. That vote was 65-30.

The next and final vote on Thursday will be for Rep. Justin Pearson.

The resolutions accused each of the Democratic lawmakers of engaging in “disorderly behavior” and purposely bringing “disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives” during protests against gun violence on the state House floor last week.

The votes drew attention to the partisan divisions that have rankled the Tennessee Legislature in recent months.

Chants from protesters — many of whom touted signs defending the “Tennessee three” — were audible throughout the entire legislative session Thursday. Organizers said hundreds were present.

Over the cacophony of protesters outside the state House, Republican legislators began expulsion proceedings Thursday afternoon against the three Democrats.

At the onset of the proceedings, state House Republicans moved to play a heavily edited video showing some of the events of last week’s protests — despite Democratic objections.

That led quickly to the votes to expel. In a process that closely resembles a trial, the Tennessee House allows each member to defend themselves with a 20-minute speech. House members then debate the resolution, and then each member is allowed to answer questions about the accusations against them from lawmakers.

“What is happening here today is a situation in which the jury has already publicly announced the verdict,” Jones said during a floor speech. “A lynch mob assembled to not lynch me, but our democratic process.”

Jones and Pearson are Black. Johnson is white.

Jones said his participation in the protests amounted to him “standing for those young people ... many of whom can’t even vote yet but all of whom are terrified by the continued trend of mass shootings plaguing our state and plaguing this nation.”

In an MSNBC News interview after his expulsion, Jones said that the legislative body was setting a "dangerous" precedent.

“What the nation is seeing is that we don’t have democracy in Tennessee — and that if we don’t act we have some very dark days ahead. And so we have to respond to this with mass movements, nonviolent movements,” Jones said.

“To expel voices of opposition and dissent is a signal of authoritarianism,” he added, suggesting that Tennessee’s action should “sound the alarm across the nation that we are entering into very dangerous territory.”

During the March 30 protests, the trio led supporters in chants calling for stricter gun safety measures after a mass shooting in a Nashville school that killed six people — including three 9-year-old children. A bullhorn was used, in violation of rules for the House chamber, and the lawmakers were gathered in area on the House floor without being recognized to speak. House leaders at the time called their actions “an insurrection.”

As members debated the resolution to remove Johnson, she said she participated in the protest because she felt she had to "raise the voice of the people in my district. I did what I felt those folks wanted me to do.”

“I did it for the kids in my district, for the kids in my state, for the kids in this community,” she said.

“My friends in school all called me Little Miss Law and Order because I’m a rule follower and I know that rules sometimes have to be broken, and sometimes you have to get in good trouble," Johnson added.

She also said that the resolution's charge that she "began shouting without recognition," was false, insisting that while she did protest in the part of the chamber known as the well, she didn't speak.

Addressing her supporters after the vote, Johnson said, “America should be worried," adding, according to The Tennesseean, that the failed vote to expel her “might have to do with the color of my skin.”

GOP Rep. Andrew Farmer, who sponsored the resolution to expel Pearson, described the trio’s March 30 protest on the House floor as a “temper tantrum.”

“Just because you don’t get your way doesn’t mean you can come to the well with your friends,” he said Thursday.

Pearson responded by saying: “He called a peaceful protest a temper tantrum. It isn’t a temper tantrum to say kids should go to schools that are actually safe."

The proceedings prompted criticism from Democrats across the country, including the White House. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dubbed the scheduled expulsion votes as "legislative bullying."

“The fact that this vote is happening is shocking, undemocratic and without precedent,” she said at Thursday's White House briefing.

After Jones was expelled, President Joe Biden chastised Republican legislators over the votes to remove the Democrats.

"Three kids and three officials gunned down in yet another mass shooting. And what are GOP officials focused on?Punishing lawmakers who joined thousands of peaceful protesters calling for action," Biden tweeted. "It’s shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent."

In an MSNBC News interview before the vote over his expulsion, Pearson said, “We are losing our democracy, this is not normal, this is not OK.”

“We broke a House rule because we were fighting for kids who are dying from gun violence and people in our communities who want to see an end to the proliferation of weaponry,” Pearson said.

“No one should be wanting to operate as though this is not happening, as though we are not living in a gun violent-epidemic in the state of Tennessee," he added.

Tensions flared earlier this week when the expulsion proceedings started Monday with the introduction of the resolutions. Over the yells of protesters who had again filled the chamber, each proposal passed on a party-line vote.

A protester was arrested Monday during the chaos, which, according to reporters at the session, included a physical altercation between Jones and GOP Rep. Justin Lafferty. Jones accused Lafferty of stealing his phone and trying to “incite a riot with his fellow members,” The Tennessean newspaper of Nashville reported.

The Tennessee Constitution allows either of the legislative chambers to expel a member with support from two-thirds its members.

With Republicans holding the necessary supermajority to carry out the expulsions Thursday, Democrats in the chamber had no tools to put up any meaningful resistance against the measures.

Any of the lawmakers removed by expulsion will be able to run in special elections for the seats they were booted from.

Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, has 30 days to set a date for the special elections. In the meantime, interim representatives selected by county commissions in which the seats are located will fill in.

Johnson’s district includes parts of Knoxville; Jones’ includes parts of Nashville; and Pearson’s includes parts of Memphis.

The Tennessee House last voted to expel a sitting member in 2016, when members voted 70-2 to throw out Rep. Jeremy Durham over sexual misconduct allegations.

According to The Tennessean, House members had previously voted to expel a member in 1980 — but they hadn’t done so since the Civil War. The Tennessee Senate voted last year to expel a sitting member for the first time — Katrina Robinson — after she was convicted of federal wire fraud charges.

But unlike in those prior instances, Johnson, Jones and Pearson faced no criminal or civil charges or any investigations.

More than 250 Democratic state lawmakers across the U.S. signed on to a letter organized by a progressive legislation advocacy group that accused Tennessee Republicans of racist motives.

“The attempts to expel Reps. Jones, Johnson, and Pearson show a dark truth in the light of day: there’s a robust and racist connection between fighting against gun safety and dismantling our democracy,” the letter says.

[tomorrowusa]

Republicans can keep expelling him all they like, but Justin Jones will always be back. ∞

Rep. Jones (D-TN-House-52) is back in the Tennessee House again after Tennessee Republicans under racist Speaker Cameron Sexton voted to expel him.

Nashville's Metro Council has unanimously voted to reinstate freshman Democrat Justin Jones to his seat in the Tennessee House. The GOP-led legislature expelled Jones last week for gun reform protests he led on the chamber floor after the Covenant School shooting.

The vote puts Jones into the seat on an interim basis until a special election can be held for the seat.

"Justin Jones has been elected to the vacancy of Tennessee House 52 pursuant to the state law and the rules governing the Metropolitan Council," Vice Mayor Jim Shulman announced at Monday's specially called meeting, as cheers erupted in the gallery.

It all happened with great speed.

Rep. Jones still has to run in a special election. But because GOP gerrymandering placed Jones in an overwhelmingly Democratic district, there’s little doubt about the outcome.

On Wednesday, all eyes in Tennessee will be on Memphis where a local council is expected to appoint Justin Pearson to his old seat.

EDIT: There are now allegations that far right Speaker Cameron Sexton of the Tennessee House does not live in the district he’s representing. That puts him in violation of Article II, Section 5a of the Tennessee Constitution.

Where does the Tennessee House Speaker actually live? 

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Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson speaks after vote to expel him from the House over participating in gun protests: “Our lives are at stake. And we're going to fight for our lives, just like they're fighting for the NRA."

[prncssguya]

if you hear a phrase like “gun violence is now the leading cause of death for american children” and can just go about your day and not feel an ounce of rage or shame, something is incredibly wrong with you

[mysharona1987]