The Case Against Three Speakers of the Tennessee House of Representatives: A Declaration of Solidarity with the Tennessee Constitution and the Defender of the First Amendment Right

The Tennessee Constitution’s Section 12 gives the House the power to expel or punish members if they exhibit disorderly behavior.

The three virtually identical resolutions to expel Jones, Johnson and Pearson accuse them of disorderly behavior that “reflects adversely upon the integrity and dignity” of the House.

“It’s morally insane that a week after a mass shooting took six precious lives in my community here in Nashville, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, their first action is not to take actions to rein in this proliferation of weapons of war in our streets, but it’s to expel their colleagues for standing with our constituents,” Jones told “CNN This Morning” on Wednesday.

“This is not just about losing my job,” he added, saying constituents of the three representatives “are being taken and silenced by a party that is acting like authoritarians.”

The Speaker of the House said the three Democrats actions were unacceptable and that they had broken several rules 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.

Those actions took the focus away from the six victims who lost their lives, and the families who lost their loved ones, according to the author.

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

On Tuesday, Pearson publicly shared a letter he sent to House members, taking responsibility for “not following decorum” on the House floor while defending his actions.

“If this House decides to expel me for exercising our sacred first amendment right to help elevate the voices in our community who want to see us act to prevent gun violence, then do as you feel you must,” Pearson wrote.

In a statement the House Democrats said they were in solidarity with Johnson, Jones and Pearson.

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 Jones-Pearson-Jawson Expulsion: “We’re losing our democracy, and we are going to lose it,” Jones told WPLN

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

Lawmakers began to take up the question of expelling three of their colleagues shortly after 1 p.m. local time. Loud protests can be heard off the chamber’s floor.

One week ago members shut the order of the institution down, silenced millions of people and now they are back again, said the House’s majority whip.

He played a seven-minute video of events from that day over objections from Democrats who were against the deal.

The video was shot on the House floor and Democrats said that it was likely that the member who took the footage had violated House rules.

One week after Johnson, Jones and Pearson used a megaphone in the House gallery to demonstrate, the expulsion vote is taking place.

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.

Jones, Pearson and Johnson note that if they’re expelled, more than 200,000 Tennesseans would lose the representatives they lawfully elected last fall.

“We are losing our democracy in Tennessee,” Pearson told WPLN. The erosion of democracy is caused by people speaking up for gun reform. Because we spoke up for people and children who will never become state legislators, who will never graduate from high school and never get engaged, never be able to see or protest for their own lives because they’ve been killed by gun violence.”

“This was not an insurrection,” Johnson told WPLN. “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.

The Speaker compared the incident to the January 6 incident, where an insurrection took place in the State Capitol.

The lawmakers’ seats would be vacant if the expulsion effort succeeds. Because the 2024 general election is more than 12 months away, the districts would hold special elections to fill the seats. The county commissions can choose to make an interim lawmaker who will serve until a special election.

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 remove Robinson after she was convicted of wire fraud, being the first time in at least the Civil War that the chamber has removed a senator.