[ Tennessee Republicans moving toward expulsion of three Democrats
who supported students protesting for gun control after Nashville
school shooting.]
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AS YOUNG PEOPLE MARCH FOR THEIR LIVES, TENNESSEE CRUSHES DISSENT AND
OVERRIDES DEMOCRACY  
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Margaret Renkl
April 5, 2023
The New York Times
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_ Tennessee Republicans moving toward expulsion of three Democrats
who supported students protesting for gun control after Nashville
school shooting. _

Representatives Justin J. Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson
protest at Tennessee State Capitol., Nicole Hester/The Tennessean, via
Associated Press

 

NASHVILLE — Yesterday the eyes of the country were on
the indictment of a former president
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along with the all too real possibility that political or public chaos
would erupt as a result. Here in Tennessee, we were watching a
different kind of chaos unfold as our state government doubled down on
its love affair with guns, even in the immediate aftermath of a
horrific school shooting
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I wish I could tell you that guns were the worst of it.

Last Thursday, in the wake of the shooting, peaceful protesters at the
Tennessee State Capitol rallied for gun reform. Activists waved signs
in the statehouse gallery, and Representatives Justin Jones, Gloria
Johnson and Justin J. Pearson, all Democrats, led them in chants from
the House floor during breaks. Between bills, the lawmakers also
approached the podium to speak. They did not wait to be formally
recognized.

On Monday, statehouse Republicans stripped all three of their
committee memberships and deactivated their ID badges. The Democrats
“did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor
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the House of Representatives,” the formal resolutions against them
read. Tomorrow, the House will vote on whether to expel the three
lawmakers for talking out of turn.

Expulsion is extremely rare
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Tennessee history. As the Politico reporter Natalie Allison pointed
out
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Twitter, the Tennessee House didn’t even vote to expel a Republican
legislator who had been accused of sexually assaulting three teenage
girls
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The resolutions against Mr. Jones, Ms. Johnson and Mr. Pearson were
filed against a backdrop that highlights the absurdity of the actions
Republicans have taken against them.

On Monday at 10:13 a.m., one week to the minute
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a shooter armed with military-style weapons entered the
church-affiliated Covenant School and murdered three children and
three adults, more than 7,000 Nashville students staged a walkout to
demand gun reform
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It was a sight to behold: Vanderbilt University students
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down one street, Belmont University students
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down another, all of them joining a large crowd of high school and
college students from around town. They were determined to speak as
one voice directly to their government — to the only people with any
power to reduce the risks they take just by going to class.

No place in this firearm-besotted country is safe from gun violence,
but Tennessee students are at particular risk, and not just in school.
They live in a state with some of the nation’s most permissive gun
laws
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well as the highest rate of gun theft
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and perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the highest rates of gun deaths
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The guns that killed the children and staff members at Covenant last
week were all purchased legally, despite the fact that the shooter was
being treated for an emotional disorder. If Tennessee had enacted a
red-flag law before now, it’s fair to believe that six deeply
mourned members of the Covenant community would still be alive.
Countless others would be, too.

Until yesterday, when the judiciary committee of the State
Senate voted to postpone all gun-related legislation
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a red-flag law jointly proposed by Senator Jeff Yarbro and House
member Caleb Hemmer, both Democrats — the Tennessee General Assembly
showed every sign of turning Nashville’s school shooting into an
opportunity to weaken gun safety in the state even further
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The shamelessness on display was breathtaking. “If there is a
firearm out there that you’re comfortable being shot with, please
show me which one it is,” a Republican state representative said to
student protesters
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Presumably he meant that banning assault-style guns wouldn’t prevent
students from being shot with other kinds of guns, but that’s not
much of an argument coming from a pro-gun legislator who opposes
red-flag laws.

These repeated demonstrations for gun safety legislation were the
context in which the Republican supermajority of the Tennessee House
moved to expel Mr. Jones, Ms. Johnson and Mr. Pearson from the
statehouse. But the three Democrats had more than public sentiment on
their side. They had more, even, than moral authority on their side.
They also had a practical reason for flouting chamber rules: “Our
mics were cut off throughout the week whenever we tried to bring up
the issue of gun violence,” Mr. Jones told WKRN
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Ms. Johnson is a retired teacher and veteran legislator who represents
parts of Knox County in East Tennessee, but the two men are new to the
General Assembly. In a special election this year to replace a House
member who died in October, Memphis voters elected Mr. Pearson in a
landslide. Mr. Jones represents a district in Nashville. After winning
the Democratic primary, he ran unopposed in the November election.

Both men are skilled community organizers. Mr. Pearson led the
successful effort to stop the Byhalia Connection Pipeline
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running through a historic Black neighborhood in Memphis. Mr. Jones
led the successful effort to have a bust of the Confederate Gen.
Nathan Bedford Forrest removed from the State Capitol
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Disenfranchisement of liberal voters
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nothing new in the state of Tennessee, but what the G.O.P is trying to
do to these Democrats goes well beyond disenfranchisement. To remove
legitimately elected officials from the chamber to which voters sent
them — and to do so precisely because those officials were
representing the wishes of voters — is nothing short of
authoritarianism. And the Republican supermajority in the Tennessee
General Assembly has the votes to do it.

Still, I can’t help but hope that Tennesseans will protest the
precedent their leaders are about to establish. I still have hope that
voters, even Republican voters, will contact their legislators today
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least some of them stop and reconsider what they are poised to do.

What Tennessee Republicans may think of Mr. Jones, Ms. Johnson and Mr.
Pearson is far less important than what Tennessee Republicans may
think about American democracy. Because democracy does not exist in a
state where officials can be sent home for nothing more than voicing
the opinions of voters who are pounding on the statehouse door,
demanding to be heard.

In fundamental ways, none of this is surprising. Twenty-first-century
Republicans are always demonstrating a truth that the Roman historian
Tacitus understood back in the first century: It is part of human
nature to hate someone you have hurt. In refusing to expand Medicaid,
in attempting to replace public schools with private charters, in
disenfranchising Democratic voters, in persecuting L.G.B.T.Q. citizens
and demonizing school librarians, in stripping bodily autonomy from
Tennessee women and in failing to protect us all from gunfire, they
are telling us exactly how they feel about the people they represent.

My real hope lies in people like Justin J. Pearson, Gloria Johnson and
Justin Jones. Whatever happens to them at the hands of their fellow
legislators tomorrow, we have not heard the last from them. Of that I
have absolute confidence. The shining example of the great John Lewis,
who cut his own teeth opposing injustice in Nashville, taught them how
to cause “good trouble.” Clearly, they have learned from the
master [[link removed]].

_Margaret Renkl, a contributing Opinion writer, is the author of the
books “Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the
American South [[link removed]]” and
“Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss
[[link removed]].”_

* Tennessee
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* March for Our Lives
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* gun safety
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* censorship
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* republican ideologists
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