Democrats in Tennessee face removal from office due to gun control protests

Speakers of the House of Representatives Cameron Sexton and other lawmakers brought disorder to the protests in the light of the mass-shooting crisis in the US

The resolutions seek to remove the lawmakers from office under Article II, Section 12 of the Tennessee Constitution, which says, in part, the House can set its own rules and “punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”

There are three resolutions to expell Jones, Johnson and Pearson accusing them of disorderly behavior that negatively affects the integrity and dignity of the House.

Jones, Pearson and Johnson accused Republican leaders of not responding to the push for gun restrictions in light of the mass-shooting crisis in the US. They said that they did so to amplify the voices of protesters.

He said the party that is acting like an authoritarian is taking and silenced the constituency of the three people who represent them.

This week, Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton, a Republican, said the three Democrats’ actions “are and always will be unacceptable” and broke “several rules of decorum and procedure on the House floor.”

Sexton said peaceful protestors have always been welcomed to the capitol to have their voices heard on any issue, but that the actions of the Democratic lawmakers had detracted from that process.

“In effect, those actions took away the voices of the protestors, the focus on the six victims who lost their lives, and the families who lost their loved ones,” Sexton said in a series of tweets Monday.

“We cannot allow the actions of the three members to distract us from protecting our children. We will get through this and we need to discuss all solutions.

Each of the resolutions says the lawmakers “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives,” saying they “began shouting without recognition” and “proceeded to disrupt the proceedings of the House Representatives” for just under an hour Thursday morning.

The walk to the House floor was civil and peaceful. Pearson shared an image of a letter he wrote, in which he said that he was going to listen to the voices of people who weren’t given the chance to speak.

Pearson wrote that he would be thrown out of the house for exercising the first amendment right to raise voices in order to prevent gun violence.

House Democrats expressed solidarity with Johnson, Jones and Pearson in a statement, while Rep. Sam McKenzie, of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators, called the move “political retribution.”

The move to expel the lawmakers also drew condemnation from the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, whose executive director, Kathy Sinback, called expulsion “an extreme measure” infrequently used, “because its strips voters of representation by the people they elected.”

“Instead of rushing to expel members for expressing their ethical convictions about crucial social issues,” Sinback said, “House leadership should turn to solving the real challenges facing our state.”

The Tennessee House: What Happened When Three Members of the House of Representatives Disrupted for a Demonstration on Jan. 6

The Tennessee House session is being live-streamed on social media. Member station WPLN is closely watching the vote and reporting from the scene.

Lawmakers started discussing the issue of expelling three of their colleagues shortly after 1 p.m. Loud protests could be heard from off the chamber’s floor.

“What happened one week ago is that members … shut the order of this institution down, silenced 7 million people,” said Rep. Johnny Garrett, the House majority whip.

Over objections of the Democrats, Garrett played a seven-minute video of what happened on that day.

The video was a compilation of footage from that day and afterward — and because it included video shot on the House floor, Democrats said whichever member had taken the footage had likely violated House rules.

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.

They note that more than 200,000 Tennesseans would lose their representatives if they were kicked out.

Pearson said they were losing democracy in Tennessee. We spoke up for gun reform and this is another example of the erosion of democracy. We spoke up for people who won’t go to school or get involved in government because of gun violence, and people who won’t graduate high school or get involved in government because of gun violence.

“This was not an uprising,” Johnson said. “We’ve had skirmishes on the floor that have taken this long to resolve, and there were never any consequences.”

Jones said on CNN that Republicans are using authoritarian methods to silence the opposition. “It’s very concerning and it represents a clear and present danger to democracy all across this nation,” Jones said. “That should trouble us all.”

Republicans immediately criticized the three lawmakers for disrupting order and breaking procedural rules in the chamber, in a disruption they say lasted nearly an hour.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton compared the incident to Jan. 6: “What they did today was equivalent, at least equivalent, maybe worse depending on how you look at it, to doing an insurrection in the State Capitol,” he said.

Representatives who are kicked out can return to the office by being appointed or re-elected. The state constitution also says a lawmaker can’t be expelled a second time for the same offense.

Before Durham, the last expelled representative was Rep. Robert Fisher, who was voted out of the chamber in 1980 after being convicted of seeking a bribe in exchange for scuttling a piece of legislation.

In early 2022, the Tennessee Senate voted to expel Sen. Katrina Robinson, after she was convicted of wire fraud — “the first time the chamber has removed a senator since at least the Civil War,” the Associated Press reported.