Outlandish Pique of Politics
Terry H. Schwadron
April 7, 2023
In a pique of partisanship, Tennessee’s Republican-dominated House last night expelled two Democrats for joining young protesters over gun safety laws following the recent Nashville school shootings that left six dead.
Both Justin Jones and Justin Pearson are young, Black and outspoken. A vote to expel a third Democrat, Gloria Johnson, who is a white woman who was involved with the same protest, failed by a single vote.
Using the tiniest of procedural fig leaves, Republicans offered an awkward but powerful display of raw political power that at once reeked of racism, fear of debate, MAGA partisanship — and stupidity in pursuit of politics and values imagery.
Before watching national cameras and a state capitol seething with gun protesters and protective lines of state police, Tennessee Republicans showed that they could and would throw opponents who had dared to help usher student protesters in its chamber, upsetting “decorum” in the House, while steadfastly refusing to consider the substance of any gun measures involving semi-automatic style weapons purchases.
The Republican majority took its votes in a way that resulted in public snubbing of both basic democratic values and in different treatment for Black or white opponents. It was, as The Washignton Post, labeled it, a “historic act of partisan retaliation.” The New York Times noted it would “further inflame the partisan rancor within a bitterly divided state.”
Whatever the label, these votes took the inanity of political gridlock over the gun issue to a new level, as if justifying the elimination of opponents for speaking against a majority political legislative will. It is impossible to explain a system in which disagreement results in unseating as democracy.
The Expulsion Votes
After the vote that allowed Johnson to remain in the House, reporters asked why she thought she had been spared after Jones was ousted. She responded, “It might have to do with the color of our skin.” That remark spawned a flood of social media posts and commentary.
Republicans, naturally, pushed back on racism– by arguing that it was their intent to eliminate Johnson as well, but that somehow they lost a couple of their own party votes. One would think that if they were going to suborn democracy, they would at least know how to count the votes needed to do so.
Apparently, county officials in Nashville and Memphis can name replacements until the next election in 2024, when Jones and Pearson are eligible to run and win again. At last one local official said he would try to name Jones as the temporary representative as well.
The debate about expulsion itself was highly emotional, as had been the March 30 protest in the House by hundreds, mostly young and peaceful, who gathered to urge lawmakers to adopt gun-control legislation days after a lone gunman with multiple weapons had fired 152 times in 14 minutes, killing three students and three adults.
The House Speaker, Cameron Sexton, referred to Democratic participation with protesters as an “insurrection,” likening it to Jan. 6 violence in Washington. Republicans insisted expulsion, the most extreme sanction available, was the right move to protect the integrity of the House and its rules.
At one point in the earlier protest, a Republican lawmaker weirdly asked protesters whether they would prefer to be shot by a gun that is not a semi-automated weapon, as if that is an excuse to live with guns that threaten our schools.
The Nashville Tennessean concluded that “the expulsions have elevated the two lawmakers’ political profiles, with little long-term gains for Republican leadership as Pearson and Jones could be reappointed to their seats within days or weeks.”
The whole, sorry episode drew national following, including from Joe Biden, who tweeted that the expulsions were “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.”
What values exactly are being promoted here?
##