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Democratic lawmakers are decrying the expulsion of two Tennessee legislators Thursday, calling their removal a threat to democracy.
“All of this in the wake of children—9-year-olds—being killed at school. Every American should be on the side of democracy. We all lost today,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) tweeted.
The Tennessee Republican-controlled House voted Thursday on whether to expel a trio of Democratic lawmakers after they participated in a protest against gun violence on the House floor. The lawmakers voted to expel both state Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville) and state Rep. Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) from the House, but Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) survived her vote.
The three lawmakers had participated in a protest against violence on the House floor in the wake of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville left six people dead, including three 9-year-old children. The lawmakers were stripped of their committee earlier this week before the vote to remove them took place Thursday.
A wave of Democrats has now rallied behind the lawmakers, as many have denounced the move as “racist” and “fascist,” as well as undemocratic. The two lawmakers expelled, Pearson and Jones, are both Black men and Johnson, who is a white woman, survived her vote.
