‘This Does Not Seem Like America’: Expulsion of Black Dems in Tennessee Met With National Outcry
Expulsion has elevated once-obscure Democrats to the national conversation
The expulsion of two Black Democrats from their positions as Tennessee state legislators at the hands of their Republican colleagues has created an enormous national blowback.
State Reps Justin Jones (D-Nashville), and Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) were expelled Thursday from their elected posts in the Tennessee state House of Representatives, said to be as punishment for breaking the chamber's rules.
The pair's offense?
They took part in a noisy — but entirely peaceful — protest against the inaction of Tennessee lawmakers on gun safety reform following last month's deadly shooting at a private elementary school in Nashville.
However, while Jones and Pearson were removed, another elected Democrat — Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) — was spared while having committed the exact same rules violation.
While Jones and Pearson are Black, Johnson is white.
Asked by a reporter why she was spared while her fellow Democrats were expelled, Johnson replied, “I will answer your question. It might have to do with the color of our skin.”
In his remarks on the Tennessee House floor just prior to expulsion, Jones used rhetoric of historical racism to explain what was going on.
“What we see today is a lynch mob assembled to not lynch me, but our democratic process,” he said. “ ... We called for you all to ban assault weapons, and you respond with an assault on democracy.”
The Republican expulsion of Jones and Pearson has elevated these obscure state legislators to national heroes.
“I think it's obvious. Um, look, it's, they could have done a censure, right? I think the right question was, ‘Why take the most drastic action afterwards?’ This is exactly what our country was built on, on protesting,” CNN host Don Lemon said on-camera. “Not everyone protests -- protests aren't perfect. It's also unconscious bias. It's racism. It's a double standard in our society. I, I obviously don't have to say.
“I would doubt they would have done this to white members. Because, guess what? They didn't! They did it to the two Black members, and especially the two Black men,” Lemon added.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called the expulsion a “naked abuse of power.”
“This is about a naked abuse of power. This is about disenfranchising Democrats in states where there is extreme levels of voter suppression, and it was also about racism,” the progressive lawmaker said. “It was deeply about racism, from the comments the absolutely disrespectful and denigrating comments made to the Black members of the Tennessee House to the fact that they that these Republicans voted to expel, after charging three of these members, they expelled two Black male legislators and they voted to acquit in a way, or they voted to not expel the sole white woman, Rep. Gloria Johnson, who has been a phenomenal ally.”
Tennessee violated the expelled members' guaranteed First Amendment rights, according to former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance.
“The First Amendment is intended to permit legislators to represent the people who elected them to office. I think it’s abundantly clear Tennessee violated the First Amendment rights of these legislators straight up,” Vance said. “The situation probably gets fixed, as you said, by the local process. They are reappointed and they can’t be expelled again.
“It’s worth focusing on what President Obama said,” she added. “This is a failure of our institutions, a failure of democratic norms where the legislators would flagrantly violate First Amendment rights of elected officials to retaliate against them for representing their constituents,” she added.
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