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Outrage at G.O.P. Could Propel Expelled Democrats Right Back to House Outrage at G.O.P. Could Propel Expelled Democrats Right Back to House
(about 4 hours later)
NASHVILLE — The expulsion of two young Black lawmakers from the Tennessee House of Representatives has set off a wave of outrage among constituents and colleagues who saw it as a stunning act of political retribution by the state’s Republican supermajority. Expelled by their Republican colleagues for an act of protest, Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson were no longer members of the Tennessee House of Representatives on Friday. They could not advocate for their constituents in Nashville and Memphis, take to the floor again to push for gun control legislation or even access the building after hours.
And with momentum building on Friday to reappoint the ousted lawmakers, Representatives Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin J. Pearson of Memphis, they could be well on their way to retaking their seats in the State Capitol within days. But instead of sidelining the Democratic lawmakers, the expulsions have sparked outrage and galvanized national support within their party, and the two young Black lawmakers are poised to return to the state legislature — as soon as next week — with a platform and profile far surpassing what they had just days ago.
In a dramatic legislative session that drew shouts of “Shame on you” from the galleries and garnered national attention, the Republican-controlled House voted on Thursday to expel Mr. Jones and Mr. Pearson for interrupting debate last week by using a bullhorn to lead a gun control protest in the chamber. An attempt to expel a third Democratic lawmaker, Gloria Johnson, failed by one vote. On Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris made a hastily arranged visit to Nashville to meet with the state lawmakers, and President Biden, who described the Republicans’ actions as “shocking” and “undemocratic,” called the ousted Democrats to offer his support and invite them to the White House.
Grief and anger have consumed Nashville since the Covenant School shooting on March 27 that left six people dead. In recent days, hundreds of demonstrators have rallied at the Capitol, demanding action on gun control; on Thursday, enraged protesters overwhelmed the corridors of the state building, chanting their support for the three lawmakers. “That made these individuals martyrs,” Representative Antonio Parkinson, a Democrat from Memphis, said of the expulsions. “It’s going to be extremely hard to silence them.”
The ousting of Mr. Jones and Mr. Pearson set off anger among Democrats well beyond Tennessee. President Biden called the Republicans’ actions “shocking” and “undemocratic,” and Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to travel to Nashville on Friday to meet with state legislators. Mr. Jones and Mr. Pearson were expelled on Thursday for interrupting debate last week by using a bullhorn to lead a gun control protest in the chamber in the wake of a deadly school shooting in Nashville. Republican leaders argued that the two lawmakers and Representative Gloria Johnson, who joined the protest but survived an expulsion vote, had brought “disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives.”
Asked Friday about the expulsions, Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois said, “There is a threat to democracy that is occurring all across this nation and especially in states that are controlled by Republican governors and Republican majority and supermajority legislatures.” Critics said that the expulsions were an overreaction that defied the will of the voters who had elected Mr. Jones and Mr. Pearson in Nashville and Memphis, the state’s two largest cities, which also have large Black and Democratic-leaning populations. Democratic lawmakers and activists also warned that the expulsions could have dangerous repercussions, including encouraging lawmakers in Tennessee and other states controlled by a single party to use the measure as a tool for silencing dissenting voices.
The expulsions leave thousands of residents of Nashville and Memphis without representation in the House in the final weeks of a legislative session that has seen Republican lawmakers use their supermajority to muscle through their priorities, pitting Tennessee’s conservative rural districts against its more diverse, liberal cities. The outrage was also driven by race, as some lawmakers, activists and others said they believed that it was a factor in the final outcome of the votes: The two young Black lawmakers were ejected, but the third lawmaker involved, Ms. Johnson, a white Democrat from Knoxville, avoided the same fate by a single vote. “It might have to do with the color of my skin,” Ms. Johnson said on Thursday after seven Republicans joined Democrats in voting against her expulsion.
With two seats now vacant, the responsibility for appointing interim replacements falls to the local governing bodies in their districts, and leaders in both Nashville and Memphis have indicated their support for selecting Mr. Jones and Mr. Pearson. “Think about that,” Representative Parkinson said. “What signal does that send to the rest of the world? What does that say about who you are? It didn’t have to happen. That’s the worst part about it.”
The Nashville Metropolitan Council plans to hold a special meeting on Monday on Mr. Jones’s vacated seat, and several members of the council have already pledged to appoint him. Mr. Pearson has said that he wants to return to his seat, too, and local and state leaders have voiced their support. Representative William Lamberth, the Republican majority leader, dismissed that assertion, arguing that Mr. Jones and Mr. Pearson had been “trying to incite a riot” and that Ms. Johnson had a clearer case for why she should be spared expulsion.
“They did not see Representative Johnson yelling, they did not see her with a sign, they did not see her with the bullhorn,” he said of his Republican colleagues. “They did see the other two members.”
Mr. Lamberth said that race was not a consideration. “All the resolutions were the same,” he said, “and the strength of the evidence against two of the representatives was stronger than the other.”
Representative Charlie Baum, who represents Murfreesboro, a rapidly growing city about 30 miles from Nashville, was the sole Republican to vote against the expulsion of all three Democrats.
Mr. Baum said that he would have preferred to work with the three lawmakers to improve House deliberations and that he had heard from his constituents, who overwhelmingly opposed expulsion. And during Holy Week, he added, he was “interested in showing some grace.”
The fate of the seats in the immediate term now rests with local officials in Nashville and Shelby County, where the lawmakers’ districts were. The Shelby County Commission will decide whether to appoint Mr. Pearson. Some of the 13 commissioners have indicated their support. Others said they were still considering their options as they were thrust into the middle of a contentious situation.
“I’m taking it all in,” Mick Wright, one of the commissioners, said in an email on Friday. “I believe both sides could do a better job listening to and respecting one another. That’s all I have to say for now.”
Representative Torrey Harris, a Memphis Democrat, said on Friday morning that he and other lawmakers planned to meet that evening with commissioners from Shelby County, which includes Memphis, about the process for returning Mr. Pearson to the Capitol.Representative Torrey Harris, a Memphis Democrat, said on Friday morning that he and other lawmakers planned to meet that evening with commissioners from Shelby County, which includes Memphis, about the process for returning Mr. Pearson to the Capitol.
“What’s best for Shelby County is for Representative Justin Pearson, who was elected by those people, to be sent back up here to continue to represent them throughout the rest of this session,” he said.“What’s best for Shelby County is for Representative Justin Pearson, who was elected by those people, to be sent back up here to continue to represent them throughout the rest of this session,” he said.
For Democratic colleagues of Mr. Pearson and Mr. Jones, as well as some of their constituents, the expulsion of two Black lawmakers and survival of their white colleague had a distinct racial overtone. In Nashville, where many members of the Metropolitan Council have signaled their support for returning Mr. Jones to his seat, the expulsion has worsened an already inflamed relationship between state and city leaders. Nashville sued the state last month over a law that would slash by half the size of the council, which governs Nashville and Davidson County.
After the failed vote to expel her, Ms. Johnson told reporters that the outcome may have been a result of “the color of my skin.” “I’m angry, sad and enraged,” Bob Mendes, an at-large member of the council, said of his reaction to watching the proceedings. “Surprised is not on the list because nothing the supermajority does really surprises me.”
Outside a grocery store in Nashville on Friday, Samuel Clark, a resident of Mr. Jones’s former district, said he viewed his expulsion as “racially motivated” and evidence of the Republican supermajority’s effort to censure opposition. The demonstration on the House floor reflected the grief and anger that have engulfed Nashville after an armed assailant stormed into the Covenant School, a small, private academy in the city, and killed three 9-year-old students and three adults. The fury over the shooting and a resistance by the legislature to pursue gun control measures drew hundreds of protesters to the Capitol.
Republicans have said that race did not play a role in their decision-making, and some said they were persuaded by Ms. Johnson’s argument that she had not used the bullhorn or shouted as she stood alongside her colleagues. On Thursday, enraged demonstrators filled the corridors of the state building, chanting their support for the three lawmakers. As infuriated as they have been by the process, activists said the moment was also inspiring others to become involved. “My phone has not stopped ringing,” said Tequila Johnson, the executive director of the Equity Alliance, a grass-roots social justice organization in Nashville.
Seven of the 75 Republicans in the House voted against Ms. Johnson’s expulsion. One of the seven, Representative Lowell Russell, said in a statement that Ms. Johnson should be censured for her “unacceptable conduct” last week, but that “the evidence presented did not warrant her expulsion.” The demonstrations over guns came as the Republican supermajority has pushed ahead with an aggressive conservative agenda, including adopting a law restricting drag performances and another measure blocking gender-affirming care for transgender minors. Last Friday, a federal judge temporarily blocked the implementation of the drag law, hours before it was set to go into effect.
Representative Sam McKenzie, a Knoxville Democrat and the chairman of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators, said he was glad that Ms. Johnson had not been expelled. Tennessee has also been buffeted by disaster: On Friday, President Biden approved a disaster declaration for a swath of the state shredded by tornadoes this month. And it has had to grapple in recent months with anger over police brutality after Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was fatally beaten by Memphis officers in January.
“But the world saw the optics,” he said. “I don’t have to say a word about the fact that our two young African American brothers were unfairly prosecuted.” Mr. Pearson, 28, won a special election in a landslide to represent parts of Memphis, his hometown, just as Mr. Nichols’s death touched off renewed protests pushing for overhauling policing in the city and across the country. He decried the violence gripping Memphis. “We are dealing with an immense amount of grief from his murder by police and my own classmate’s murder by someone else in the same week,” he said in an interview with NPR in January.
On Friday, Elizabeth Waites, a resident of Mr. Jones’s former district, drove to the Covenant School to place flowers at its entrance. Ms. Waites had voted for Mr. Jones in the primary and general elections. To her, his expulsion was devastating. He had gained prominence as a critic of a crude oil pipeline proposed to run through predominantly Black neighborhoods of South Memphis, a project that was canceled in 2021.
“Justin Jones’s constituents knew who Justin Jones was and that’s who they elected,” she said. Supporters of Mr. Jones and Mr. Pearson invoked civil rights leaders of the past as they described them and their approach to politics. Mr. Jones often referred to “good trouble,” the term indelibly linked to John Lewis, the congressman and activist who died in 2020, as a mantra for employing activism to confront racism and discrimination.
Jamie McGee contributed reporting. Before winning an election to serve in the state legislature, Mr. Jones had staged a sit-in at the Capitol, demanding the removal of a bust of a Confederate general. In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, Mr. Jones became known as a leader of the People’s Plaza Protest, a continuous two-month demonstration outside the Capitol.
“Justin Jones’s constituents knew who Justin Jones was and that’s who they elected,” said Elizabeth Waites, a resident of Mr. Jones’s former district, who voted for him twice.
Mr. Jones and Mr. Pearson had run into turbulence before the demonstration last week. When Mr. Pearson opted to wear a dashiki on the House floor, defying a custom of men wearing a suit and tie, he was chastised by Republican lawmakers. “If you don’t like rules, perhaps you should explore a different career opportunity that’s main purpose is not creating them,” Tennessee House Republicans said in a post on Twitter.
But after Republicans attacked the lawmakers for the demonstration on the House floor, Bryan Richey, a Republican lawmaker from the Knoxville suburbs, tried to discourage his colleagues from ejecting all three. He could envision how it would reverberate beyond Tennessee. (He voted against expelling Mr. Pearson and Ms. Johnson, but did support ejecting Mr. Jones.)
“If you expel them, they’re just going to get blown up to a level that none of y’all are ever going to see,” Mr. Richey said, recounting what he told other lawmakers considering expulsion. “And that’s exactly what’s unfolding right now.”
Reporting was contributed by Jamie McGee and Emily Cochrane.