Tennessee, United StatesTennessee Republicans in a rare act of political retaliation expelled two Democratic lawmakers from the state legislature Thursday for participating in a protest for greater gun control following a deadly school shooting in Nashville. A third legislator fought the expulsion by one vote.
The mixed results in the ballots led to accusations of racism, as lawmakers expelled representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, both black, while representative Gloria Johnson, white, survived the vote on her expulsion . However, Republican leaders denied that race was a factor.
Lawmakers “removed the two black men and left the white woman,” Black state Sen. London Lamar of Memphis said in a tweet.
“An exhibition of racism today,” he added.
The expulsion is a measure that the chamber has applied only on a few occasions since the Civil War. Most state legislatures have the power to expel members, but it is generally reserved to punish legislators accused of a serious crime, not as a weapon against political opponents.
Jones, Pearson and Johnson joined a protest last week when hundreds of protesters packed the Capitol to demand passage of gun control measures. When the galleries were packed with protesters, the three Democrats marched to the front of the House of Representatives with a megaphone and chanted slogans.
The protest took place days after the shooting death of six people at the Covenant Christian School, three of them children.
“We are losing our democracy. This is not normal. This is not right,” Pearson told reporters on Thursday.
“The three of us broke a chamber rule because we are fighting for children who die due to gun violence and for people in our communities who want to see an end to gun proliferation in our communities.”
Johnson, a retired teacher, said her concern about gun attacks in schools was personal, recalling a day in 2008 when several students ran out of a cafeteria because a student had just been shot and killed on the spot.
“The trauma on those faces, you will never forget it. I don’t want to forget it,” he added.
