Why did the Jones, Jones and Pearson protests of March 11th, 2017, violate the First Amendment right, and why they should have been expelsled

Two Democrats were kicked out of the House, while a third was spared in an ousting by Republicans that the trio called oppressive, vindictive and racially motivated.

GOP lawmakers filed three resolutions Monday that would try to oust Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones andJustin Pearson who were removed from their committees after last week’s protests.

When a mass shooting takes six lives in my community, Nashville, and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle do not take actions to rein in this proliferation of weapons of war, it is morally insane.

“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.”

This week, Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton, a Republican, said the three Democrats’ actions “are and always will be unacceptable” and broke “several rules of decorum and procedure 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 away the voices of the protesting crowd, as well as the focus on the six victims who lost their lives and the families who lost their loved ones.

“We cannot allow the actions of the three members to distract us from protecting our children. We will get through this together, but it will require a lot of talking about solutions.

According to the expulsion resolutions, Jones, Pearson and Johnson “began shouting without recognition” during their protest, and “proceeded to disrupt the proceedings of the House Representatives.”

Pearson sent a letter to House members in which he said he took accountability for not following decorum on the house floor, but he defended his actions.

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

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee executive director called the move a targeted expulsion of two Black legislators without due process.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee called expelling the lawmakers an extreme measure, because it strips voters of representation by the people they elected.

House leadership should instead be looking at the real issues facing the state, instead of rushing to expel members for expressing their ethical convictions.

What has been learned since the Tennessee House of Representatives John Jones, Markovian Jordan, and Jeremy Jones, Jr., since 1 p.m. Local Time?

Video of the Tennessee House session is being live-streamed on YouTube and social media. Member station WPLN is closely watching 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 were sometimes heard off the chamber’s floor.

The majority whip in the House said that members shut the institution down one week ago and silenced 7 million people.

Garrett played a seven-minute video of events from that day, over objections of Democrats including Rep. Joe Towns, Jr., D-Memphis, who spoke out against what he called a “stacked deal” and an “ambush.”

The video was a compilation of footage from that day and afterward — and because it included video shot on the House floor, Democrats said whichever member had taken the footage had likely violated House rules.

Following their expulsion – which House Republicans said was in response to the representatives’ leadership of gun control demonstrations on the chamber floor last week – Jones and Pearson called for protesters to return to the Capitol when the House is back in session on Monday.

A young man shot and killed six people at an elementary school in Nashville, prompting many people to visit the legislature to call for 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.

Pearson said they are losing their democracy in Tennessee. “This is another example of the erosion of democracy because we spoke 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.”

The Republican party is using authoritarian methods to silence dissent, according to Jones. “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 criticized the three lawmakers for breaking procedural rules and disrupting order in the chamber, which lasted nearly an hour.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton compared the incident to Jan. 6: “What they did today was equivalent, at least equivalent, maybe worse depending on how you look at it, to doing an insurrection in the State Capitol,” he said.

The commission will appoint representatives who want to return to the office if they are expelled. The constitution states that a lawmaker can’t be kicked off for the same offense again.

Durham was found to have exhibited disorderly behavior and was expelled from the house in 2016 after he was accused of sexual harassment.

In early 2022, the Tennessee Senate voted to expel Sen. Katrina Robinson, after she was convicted of wire fraud — “the first time the chamber has removed a senator since at least the Civil War,” the Associated Press reported.

Protesters packed the state Capitol on Thursday to denounce the expulsions of Reps. Justin Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson and to advocate for gun reform measures a little over a week after a mass shooting devastated a Nashville school.

That’s absolutely correct. We’re the two youngest Black lawmakers. I am 27 years old and Rep. Pearson is 28 years old. And race, most definitely. And I think Rep. Johnson said it, when she was not expelled and I was expelled — those were the first two cases heard — the news media asked and she said “I think it’s because of skin color.”

Thursday’s expulsions have been criticized by Democratic politicians and civil liberties groups who say voters in Jones’s and Pearson’s districts have been disenfranchised. Jones said the move distracted from the real problem of gun violence.

President Joe Biden in a statement Thursday called the expulsions “shocking, undemocratic and without precedent” and criticized Republicans for not taking greater action on gun reform.

According to CNN affiliate WVMV, Jones claimed that the microphones on his microphones were cut off when he raised the topic of gun violence on the House floor.

Faison told CNN the caucus didn’t think an ethics committee was necessary to consider the issue, and accused Pearson and Jones of disrupting floor proceedings before.

“It’s not possible for us to move forward with the way they were behaving in committee and on the House floor,” Faison said. “There’s got to be some peace.”

The #Lambda(2022) Campaign: Defending the Civil Rights of Black Americans in the Tennessee General Assembly with the Removal of the Brown and Jones Candidates

Following their removal, pictures and profiles of Pearson and Jones have been pulled from the Tennessee General Assembly’s website and their districts have been listed as vacant.

The roots 100 most influential black Americans (2022) award named Rep. Justin Pearson as a result of he successfully blocked the oil pipelines from being built in south Memphis. The issues for Gloria Johnson include education, jobs, health care and the state’s version of Medicaid expansion. Justin Jones:District: 52Age: 27In office: 2023-Issues: Health care, environmental justiceOf note: Wrote “The People’s Plaza: 62 Days of Nonviolent Resistance” after helping to organize a 2022 sit-inRecent awards: Ubuntu Award for outstanding service, Vanderbilt Organization of Black Graduate and Professional Students (2019)

Pearson said he hopes to “get reappointed to serve in the state legislature,” and referring to the Shelby County commissioners, he said, “A lot of them, I know, are upset about the anti-democratic behavior of this White supremacist-led state legislature.”

After being kicked out, Pearson and Jones told a crowd they would continue to advocate for gun control measures and encouraged protesters to keep showing up.

Pearson demands that democracy be available to everyone, not just for rich White men who get these positions of power and perpetuate the status quo.

The House had expelled two state representatives in the last 157 years. The first, in 1980, was a representative found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office, and the most recent was in 2016 when another was expelled over allegations of sexual harassment.

“You never use a sledgehammer to kill a gnat,” Towns said. We should not go to the extreme of expelling our members if you disagree with what we’re fighting for.

She stated that it raises questions about the disparate treatment of Black representatives while continuing the shameful legacy of suppression of the voices of marginalized communities.

Remaining with the State Legislature: Replacing Jones and Pearson in the Tennessee Legislature, a State Code Accorded to the Tennessee Constitution

As focus now shifts to filling the two new vacancies in the state House, local lawmakers in Jones’ and Pearson’s districts are working to determine their next steps, including possibly returning the ousted lawmakers to the chamber.

According to the Tennessee Constitution, since there is more than twelve months until the next general election in November 2024, a special election will be held to fill the seats.

A “writ of election” for “primary elections for nominations by statewide political parties to fill the vacancy” must be scheduled within 55 to 60 days, state code says. A general election for filling the vacant seat must be held within 100 to 104 days.

Members of the Metropolitan Council, the Legislature of the consolidated city-county government of Nashville and Davidson County may vote to reappoint Jones at a special meeting on Monday.

Jones told CNN’s Don Lemon on Friday that if he’s appointed by the council, he will serve. There are no regrets for me. I will continue to stand up for my constituents,” he said.

The Commission chairman Mickell Lowery planned to call a special meeting to discuss the expulsion of Pearson, according to WMC.

The state representative in Tennessee must be 21 years of age, a US citizen, a resident of the state for three years, and a county resident for one year prior to the election.

The Tennessee House GOP Caucus: Reply to the Jones and Pearson Demonstration Against racial and racist inequalities

And while the state Constitution says members can be expelled for disorderly behavior with a two-thirds majority vote, they cannot be expelled “a second time for the same offense.”

The Tennessee House Republican Caucus said in a statement that if Jones and Pearson are re-elected, it would want them to act as the thousands of people who have come before them.

The vote came a week after three lawmakers interrupted a floor session with a megaphone, leading protesters in calls for stronger gun laws in the wake of the Nashville school shooting that left six people dead.

Jones agrees. Speaking to Morning Edition on Friday, he accused Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton of having “trafficked in racial rhetoric and racism.”

Sexton has not responded to NPR’s request for comment on Jones’ claims. But he told reporters after the vote that the decision was based on “the actions of those three that they did on the House floor on that day,” and the body needing to follow the proper “process and procedures.”

Sexton told reporters that if the council does reappoint the expelled lawmakers, “we’ll go through that process when the time comes.” Tennessee’s constitution states that lawmakers cannot be expelled for the same offense more than once.

The speaker had stripped me of my committees the next day and turned off my identification, even though I was still a lawmaker, and so that’s what we saw.

But then because the speaker falsely mischaracterized our nonviolent peaceful protest and solidarity with the people as an insurrection, he escalated the situation not only against us but against those thousands of young people at the Capitol who were protesting, simply saying that they want to live, in the days following a mass shooting here in Nashville.

“What happened this week in Tennessee was an exercise of power used to send a political message: dissent and refusal to conform will not be tolerated,” Vanderbilt University’s Carrie Russell, a principal senior lecturer in political science, told NPR in an email.

“Weaponizing legislative discipline reveals a concerning level of democratic dysfunction,” said Seifter, who is the co-director of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She added, “it suggests that more attention should focus on state-level government.”

This is the first time multiple Tennessee legislators have been ousted in a single legislative session since 1866, when Tennessee was struggling to adopt citizenship rights for formerly enslaved people after the Civil War.

Krishnakumar believes that the behavior by the legislature after the Civil War is not an accident.

Of course, the current environment of intense political polarization extends beyond Tennessee. So, could majorities in other state legislatures follow suit, and expel politicians with whom they can’t agree?

“Unlike other ways that state legislators may entrench their power or act in a countermajoritarian fashion (a pattern I’ve written about here), disciplinary actions are typically self-limiting,” she added.

Still, Krishnakumar notes that in highly polarized times, elected officials are hunting for ways to score points with their supporters and one-up the opposing party.