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In an extraordinary move, Tennessee’s Republican-led House will vote Thursday on whether to expel three Democratic lawmakers who recently led a raucous protest from the House floor calling for gun law reforms.
Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson acknowledge that they didn’t follow the rules of order and decorum by speaking without being formally recognized. But they’re facing a disciplinary measure that’s only been used twice since the 1800s. Republicans have said the trio’s actions amount to an insurrection.
Video of the Tennessee House session is being live-streamed on YouTube and social media. Member station WPLN is closely watching the vote and reporting from the scene.
If the expulsion vote follows party lines, the three Democrats will be removed from office: Republicans control the 99-member House with 75 seats. The trio, whom supporters call „The Tennessee Three,“ have already been stripped of their committee assignments.
Here’s more context, and how we got to this point:House protest followed Nashville school shooting
The expulsion vote is taking place one week after Reps. Johnson of Knoxville, Jones of Nashville and Pearson of Memphis used a megaphone to lead chants of demonstrators in the House gallery.
Days earlier, a 28-year-old assailant shot and killed six people at an elementary school in Nashville, prompting crowds of students and parents to visit the legislature, urging new controls.
Jones, Pearson and Johnson called out Republican leaders for not responding to the push for gun restrictions in response to the mass-shooting crisis in the U.S. They did so, they said, to amplify the voices of protesters and their constituents.
Hundreds of people came to the Tennessee State Capitol on Thursday to protest the vote and call for gun control, as WPLN’s Lexi Marshall reports.
