[Jones was unanimously reinstated by the Nashville Metropolitan
Council on Monday.]
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TENNESSEE REPUBLICANS KICKED OUT JUSTIN JONES FOR GUN CONTROL
PROTESTS. HE’S BACK.  
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Li Zhou
April 11, 2023
Vox
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_ Jones was unanimously reinstated by the Nashville Metropolitan
Council on Monday. _

State Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville raises his fist after being
reinstated to his seat on April 10, 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee.,
Seth Herald/Getty Images

 

Rep. Justin Jones
[[link removed]],
a Democrat who was recently expelled from the Tennessee legislature
over his participation in a gun control protest
[[link removed]],
was reinstated 36-0 by the Nashville Metropolitan Council on Monday.
Following the vote, Jones was sworn back into his old seat, which
represents Nashville, in a move that countered Republican efforts to
silence him and fellow Rep. Justin Pearson.

Pearson, who was also expelled for his role in the protest, is likely
to be reinstated by the local officials overseeing his district as
well. Under Tennessee law, local county commissions are in charge of
appointing an interim replacement following a lawmaker’s expulsion.
The Shelby County Commission, which governs Pearson’s district in
Memphis, is set to vote on his reappointment on Wednesday. As laid out
by the state constitution, Jones and Pearson — both of whom are
Black men — are able to return to the legislature if reinstated.

“Today we are sending a resounding message that democracy will not
be killed in the comfort of silence,” Jones told a crowd on the
Capitol steps on Monday. “Today we send a clear message to Speaker
Cameron Sexton that the people will not allow his crimes against
democracy to happen without challenge.”

The stunning expulsions from the legislature last week quickly became
flashpoints in ongoing national debates about democracy and race.
Tennessee Republicans previously argued that Jones and Pearson’s
behavior in a gun control protest warranted removal from office
because it violated House decorum rules. Rep. Gloria Johnson of
Knoxville, a white woman who also participated in the protest, was not
expelled, however, because Republicans claimed her role was less
disruptive.

Jones and Pearson’s expulsions were criticized locally and
nationally as being anti-democratic and racist. The decision
disenfranchised roughly 140,000 voters in Nashville and Memphis who
elected both lawmakers, and marked a rare use of expulsions in the
state. Civil rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers have also
repeatedly called Republicans’ decision to expel the two Black men
and not the white woman who participated in the gun control protests
racist, a critique the Tennessee GOP denies.

Ultimately, Jones’s return and Pearson’s likely reinstatement are
a powerful rebuke of Republicans’ unprecedented actions.

What’s next for Jones and Pearson

As of Monday, Jones is officially the representative of his district
again.

Pearson is due to face a similar vote from the 13-person Shelby County
Commission on Wednesday. Thus far, it’s not clear how many members
will back him, but multiple commissioners have already spoken out on
his behalf
[[link removed]].
“I have heard from my constituents, people across the county and
state as well as Republicans and Democrats, so I will be voting to
reappoint Justin Pearson,” Shelby County Commissioner Erika Sugarmon
has said
[[link removed]].

The reinstatements are ultimately temporary. Tennessee law requires
the districts of expelled lawmakers to hold special elections to
officially fill their seats, and both Jones and Pearson are allowed
to, and expected to, run again. “We will continue to fight for our
constituents,” Jones said on _Meet the Press_ this weekend
[[link removed]].

Jones, Pearson, and Johnson faced expulsion resolutions because they
went to the House floor during a recent gun control protest, with
Jones and Pearson leading protesters demonstrating from the
chamber’s gallery in chants using a bullhorn. Those actions violated
House decorum rules, Republicans said, and justified their expulsion.

Jones and Pearson have said that they participated in the protests
specifically to speak out for constituents who felt they were not
represented by the Tennessee legislature’s inaction on the issue
after the mass shooting in Nashville. The legislature has said it does
not plan to take up any gun control bills this year
[[link removed]].

The consequences they faced were unprecedented. Previously, the
Tennessee House had only expelled two lawmakers since the Civil War,
one for sexual misconduct and one for bribery. Jones and Pearson’s
expulsions marked the first to take place because of a violation of
decorum, and also the state’s first partisan expulsions in recent
history.

GOP members have said they would recognize Jones and Pearson as
members if they are reelected. In Tennessee, lawmakers also can’t be
expelled for the same offense for a second time. “If after looking
at [Jones’s] conduct, they vote he come back, we will recognize him
as a representative,” Rep. Gino Bulso, one of the Republicans who
introduced the expulsion resolutions, told the Tennessean
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The expulsions set a disturbing precedent

The expulsions of Jones and Pearson marked a shocking silencing by
Republicans of those who vocally disagreed with them on gun control,
and a blatant suppression of opposition voices by members of the
majority party.

As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp
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noted, data suggests Tennessee was already the least democratic state
in the US ahead of the expulsions. That same data found that GOP
control of a state led to an increased embrace of anti-democratic
tendencies. And those trends have some pro-democracy advocates —
including the three Democratic lawmakers
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— concerned the Tennessee GOP’s actions may inspire other
Republican-dominant legislatures to use their power to penalize or
remove those who they don’t agree with.

The removals are only the latest action by the Republican-dominated
Tennessee legislature that restricts Black political power in the
state.

Republican lawmakers have introduced bills intended to cut the size of
the Nashville City Council in half, and to undermine proposals aimed
at police reforms
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in Nashville, Memphis, and Knoxville. Given the sizable Black
populations in these cities, Democrats in the state argue
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many of these proposals are efforts to dilute the voices of Black
voters and elected representatives from these areas.

“Welcome to Tennessee, where there’s a pattern of racism that has
permeated these halls,” state Rep. Vincent Dixie of Nashville told
NBC after the lawmakers’ expulsions
[[link removed]].

Pearson and Jones have both called out Republicans’ actions as
disenfranchising their constituents and emphasized that they’re
undeterred in their ongoing advocacy for gun control. If both are
reinstated this week, they’ve vowed to continue to push for these
policies in the face of Republican hostility, and despite the fact
their party does not have the votes to affect change unilaterally.

“This is one of the greatest tactics of voter disenfranchisement and
voter oppression that I’ve ever witnessed,” Pearson said on
ABC’s _This Week_
[[link removed]].
“The reality is we have a super-majority Republican legislature that
doesn’t want to see progress, that prefers to listen to the NRA
rather than the constituents.”

===

Li Zhou [[link removed]] is a politics reporter
at Vox, where she covers Congress and elections. Previously, she was a
tech policy reporter at Politico and an editorial fellow at the
Atlantic.

* Rep Justin Jones; Expulsion of Tennesee Representatives; Tennesee
Republicans;
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