Republicans in the Tennessee House of Representatives expelled Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two Democratic colleagues, for joining protests demanding new gun control measures last week. The protests followed a mass shooting in Nashville.
Republican lawmakers in Tennessee expelled two of their Democratic colleagues for purportedly bringing “disorder and dishonor” to the House of Representatives during a protest last week. The two Democrats, Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis, joined throngs of ralliers who had converged on the Capitol after the slaying of six people in a Nashville school shooting on March 27. They chanted alongside the protesters on the House floor, calling for swift action to enact tighter gun-control measures — usually a doomed prospect here, since House Republicans outnumber Democrats almost threefold, 73-26. Only two other people have been expelled from the general assembly’s lower chamber since the Civil War, making this one of the most extraordinary disciplinary actions in the Tennessee legislature’s history.
As the proceedings unfolded, Pearson laid into his Republican colleagues for what he saw as their hypocrisy. “You, who celebrate July 4, 1776, pop fireworks and eat hot dogs, you say to protest is wrong, because you spoke out of turn” on behalf of “children who won’t ever be able to speak again,” he said in a speech that went viral on Twitter. He and Jones are probably not gone for good. Each is eligible to run for his seat again: Pearson has said he will do so, most likely in a special election, and Jones has the support of several members of Nashville’s governing Metro Council, who have said they’ll reappoint him.
