The Case Against Black Law Reforms: Rep. Jones and a Black Causal Representative in the Tennessee House with a Gun Control Protest

Shortly after the council vote, Jones returned to the Tennessee capitol to be sworn back into office amid a sea of media and supporters. He and Rep. Gloria Johnson, who narrowly escaped expulsion last week, were together in the House chamber.

The two former Democratic lawmakers want their seats back after they staged a protest on the House floor, calling for gun law reforms.

The two Black legislators were forced out of the legislature in a two-thirds majority vote last Thursday after they participated in a gun control demonstration on the House floor. Rep. Gloria Johnson, a White woman and Democrat who also participated in the demonstration, survived the vote and held on to her seat in the GOP-dominated chamber.

Some 130,000 voters in heavily Black districts are currently without representation in the House. Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, who is white and also led the protest, survived expulsion by one vote.

“This attack against us is hurting the whole state of our state,” he said. “Even though it is disproportionately impacting Black and brown communities, this is hurting poor white people … silencing them.”

Nashville’s first stop: Reply to the Nashville Metropolitan Council, or How to appoint a representative for the House District 52 seat

Less than a mile away, in the shadow of the Capitol, the Nashville Metropolitan Council will meet at 4:30 p.m. to discuss nominating and appointing Jones as the interim representative for his now-vacant House District 52 seat.

If the rule is not suspended, the vote to appoint Jones will be delayed for a month, Nashville Vice Mayor Jim Shulman told CNN on Monday.

Jones is eligible to run in a special election when the council appoints an interim House representative nominee.

The action to reappoint Mr. Pearson will be taken at a special meeting on Wednesday afternoon, according to Mickell Lowery.

Chances appear to favor Pearson’s return: Commissioner Erika Sugarmon told the Memphis Commercial Appeal that the former lawmaker has enough supporters sitting in the commission, which has a Democratic supermajority, to get him successfully reappointed.

Demonstrators are expected at the Tennessee Capitol on Monday to protest the expulsion of two Democratic state representatives as officials in Nashville are set to consider sending one of them back to the chamber.

The Tennessee House will be in session on Monday, with an Appropriations Subcommittee meeting, a Government Operations Committee meeting and a House floor session.

We are back on the basic rule, which says we have to wait four weeks if there’s an objection. The rules can be suspended if we don’t get a lot of objections, said Shulman. If we do that, the council would vote to send Jones back to Tennessee State House.

The Tennessee General Assembly is set to host a day of action against gun violence in the wake of the September 7th shooting at a Christian school

As the state and local officials hold meetings Monday, protesters are planning a day of action that includes a rally before the Metro Council meeting then a march to the state Capitol.

The mass shooting at a Nashville Christian school last month, which left six people dead including three 9-year-old children, spurred the latest standoff, with the debate over the accessibility of guns in America being part of it.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Jones, Pearson and Johnson spoke to their colleagues and protesters using a bullhorn.

Following the three representatives’ demonstrations last Thursday, Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton called their actions “unacceptable” and argued that they broke “several rules of decorum and procedure on the House floor.”

“The Republican-led supermajority of the Tennessee General Assembly sought to have a political lynching of three of its members because we spoke out of turn against the status quo of the government, after the tragic deaths of six people in the shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville,” he said.

“I believe the expulsion of State Representative Justin Pearson was conducted in a hasty manner without consideration of other corrective action methods,” Lowery said in a statement.

The next general election in Tennessee is more than a year away, and a special election will be held in November of 2024 to fill the seats.

State code requires that a writ of election for nominations by statewide political parties to fill a vacancy must be scheduled in 55 to 60 days. A general election to fill the job needs to be held within 100 to 107 days.

A US citizen, a state resident for three years and a resident of their county for one year preceding the election are required to be a state representative in Tennessee.

There have been two expulsions in the state House over the past 157 years. The last expulsion in the state House was in 2016, when a representative was expelled over allegations of sexual harassment. A representative was kicked out of office in 1980, after they were found guilty of accepting a bribe.

The vote to remove lawmakers from the state’s Republican majorities was seen by scores of high profile officials.

On Thursday, Biden criticized Republicans for not taking action on gun reform, while calling the expulsions shocking and undemocratic.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/10/us/tennessee-democrat-house-representatives-expelled-monday/index.html

Defending the Judgment against the Suspension of Strict Gun Control Measures: Reply to the Vice President Kamala Harris

Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Nashville on Friday to advocate for stricter gun control measures and highlight the importance of protecting Americans from gun violence. She also privately met with Jones, Pearson and Johnson.

“We understand when we took an oath to represent the people who elected us that we speak on behalf of them. After the meeting, Harris said that it was not about the three leaders. It was about who they were representing. It is about who the voices they were using were. Understand that – and is that not what a democracy allows?”

The Council Member said that community members contacted them and sent them emails, and that they didn’t have a single objection to the suspension of the rules.

Black leaders have called the expulsion of the two young Black lawmakers racist and hypocritical. Among the three who are white, Johnson is the only one who is black.