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The expulsion of two Tennessee Democrats over a gun control protest is an extraordinary showcase of how the levers of single-party power in America’s statehouses can be pulled not only to shut down opponents, but to also punish them.
On any given day in Tennessee, Republicans have the commanding majority to pass just about any law they want. The lopsided dynamic is common in many U.S. statehouses — including where Democrats are in charge — and it has widened under gerrymandered voting maps that redraw legislative district boundaries to dilute the opposition party’s votes.
But in ousting Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson altogether from the Tennessee Legislature on Thursday, Republicans went beyond their typical ability to steamroll Democrats. They instead maximized their parliamentary power to exact retribution.
Not only did Republicans have the votes to oust the lawmakers — one of the few times such drastic action has been taken since the Civil War — they suspended legislative rules of procedure to hasten the process.
The expulsions reverberated far beyond Tennessee, with Democrats in states where they’re similarly outnumbered taking notice. GOP leaders defended their actions as necessary to send a message that disruptive protests in the Tennessee House would not be tolerated.
A third Democrat, Rep. Gloria Johnson, was narrowly spared expulsion by a one-vote margin.
“The erosion of democracy in the state Legislature is what got us here,“ Pearson said after his ouster. “It wasn’t walking up to the well, it wasn’t being disruptive to the status quo, it was the silencing of democracy and it’s wrong.”
THE TENNESSEE VOTE
In Tennessee, Republicans hold a supermajority control in both the House and Senate and have wielded full control of the Legislature since 2008.
