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His photo and bio have been removed from the Tennessee General Assembly's website, but on his campaign site, Jones describes himself as a Nashville activist and community organizer. The votes, held on Thursday, April 6, resulted in Justin Jones and Justin Pearson being expelled from the Tennessee State House of Representatives, while Gloria Johnson kept her seat by one vote. MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Before Justin J. Pearson was expelled from his seat in the Tennessee legislature, he was making a name for himself as a community activist in Memphis and a voice for a new generation. As of this week, Jones and Pearson are officially the representatives for their districts again.
Second Expelled Democrat Is Sent Back to Tennessee House
The unprecedented and partisan move by the chamber’s Republican supermajority to expel me from my duly-elected position temporarily silenced the voices of my constituents and flouted their right to be represented in the House. But it failed — as it did for Rep. Jones, when he was sent back to the House on Monday following a vote by the council of his district in Metro Nashville. The Shelby County Board of Commissioners is expected to vote later Wednesday at a special meeting in Memphis on whether Pearson will be reappointed on an interim basis. The Shelby County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday voted to confirm the reappointment of Justin J. Pearson to the Tennessee House of Representatives, sending him back to fill the House District 86 seat as an interim representative. Justin J. Pearson gave fiery remarks following the vote Wednesday by the Shelby County Board of Commissioners to appoint him to represent the district in the Tennessee House of Representatives after he was expelled last week.
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Republicans banished Pearson and state Rep. Justin Jones last week over their role in the protest on the House floor over the shooting, which left three children and three adults dead. Earlier Wednesday, Pearson met supporters at the National Civil Rights Museum, just over a mile from the county government building. The appointments are interim and special elections for the seats will take place in the coming months. The appointments are interim, though both Jones and Pearson plan to run in special elections for the seats later this year.
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Lee, meanwhile, has avoided commenting on the lawmakers’ expulsions, saying the controversy is a House issue. In his address outside the Capitol, Pearson read the names of those killed and referenced another mass shooting on Monday at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky, in which five people were killed and eight others were injured. This should be a chastening moment for revanchist forces in Tennessee’s legislature and across the country. Over the long haul, the undemocratic machinations employed to oust us from office are destined to fail.
Chart: What does silencing mean? • Tennessee Lookout - Tennessee Lookout
Chart: What does silencing mean? • Tennessee Lookout.
Posted: Mon, 22 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Pearson’s parents both took the podium before their son, with his mother reciting Maya Angelou’s poem "Still I Rise." "I feel like our democracy is about to start working again, to the point where the people are going to get heard," Harris said, expressing optimism outside of Pearson's swearing in. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond. Pearson grew up in the same House district he was chosen to represent after longtime state Rep. Barbara Cooper, a Black Democrat, died in office. It winds along the neighborhoods, forests and wetlands of south Memphis, through the city’s downtown area and into north Shelby County.
It was reminiscent of the anti-gun protest that Jones waged last year on the House floor — part of the so-called Tennessee Three — that resulted in him and Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, being expelled from the House. Tennessee joins the slew of states in greenlighting legislation allowing teachers to carry a gun or keep one in their classroom. Last week Kim Reynolds, Iowa’s governor, signed a bill that allows teachers and other school employees to get a new professional permit to carry guns on school grounds.
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The House’s vote to remove Pearson and Jones but keep white Rep. Gloria Johnson — who also participated in the protest — drew accusations of racism. Justin J. Pearson is a community organizer in Memphis, TN and a servant leader who prioritizes people and our community. Justin is an approachable, accessible, reliable, responsive, and honest person who will serve every one in District 86 as their State House Representative. Justin has been an advocate since his high school days where he demanded the Board of Education provide textbooks to Mitchell High School to his days leading the fight to stop the multibillion dollar pipeline from running through Memphis. The letter notes that the state legislature has reportedly never expelled a member for procedural violation before and that Pearson and Jones, who are Black, were expelled while Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is white and also part of the protest, was not. Sen. Raphael Warnock and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter Wednesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging the Department of Justice to investigate the expulsion of two Black lawmakers from the Tennessee General Assembly.
Chairman Mickell M. Lowery of the commission, who put forth the resolution to reinstate Pearson, said he had heard from people across the country who disagree with the expulsion. Aside from the voucher money, opponents have criticized funding approximately $400 million annual in tax breaks and $1.5 billion in refunds for businesses. The House and Senate remain split on the specifics, and under the House version, the $1.5 billion pot for refunds would be roughly cut in half, and the names and amounts of the companies taking a refund would be made public. “But budgets are moral documents, they articulate the priorities of the people in power to the people we represent and this budget does not have any regard to ensure one out of eight kids are no longer hungry,” Pearson added. Legislative leaders conceded Wednesday that hopes of a last-minute voucher solution were dwindling. The upcoming weekend offers a final negotiation opportunity to resolve the glaring differences between the House and Senate.
Knoxville's Gloria Johnson is running for two different seats. Can she do that? What to know.
The first expulsion, in 1980, was of a representative found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office, and the most recent came in 2016 when another member was expelled over allegations of sexual harassment. The expulsion of Reps. Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson from the Tennessee House was a rare move. And yet, calls for common sense gun reform measures fall on deaf ears in our legislature where a Republican supermajority is wildly out of step with most people’s values. Pearson said the protests in support of the lawmakers that followed their expulsion showed that the “movement is still alive." Justin J. Pearson, one of two Democratic lawmakers expelled by the GOP-controlled Tennessee House last week, said he is going to keep fighting because the "status quo needs changing." The other state lawmaker who was ousted, Rep. Justin Jones, was reappointed in his Nashville district on Monday.
The proposed bill, SB 1968 also known as HB 2080, would amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 2 and Title 8, relative to public office. If Johnson does win both seats, she would end up having to choose which seat she would serve in, and Johnson told USA TODAY Network-Tennessee she would choose the U.S. To run for reelection, Johnson must collect 25 signatures from District 90 residents and submit her completed candidacy paperwork to make it official, which she has done. Tennessee Rep. Gloria Johnson has made a name for herself over the last year on the floor of the Tennessee General Assembly and now she's trying to take her voice to the United States Senate ... There have been at least 12 shooting incidents on school campuses resulting in injury or death so far in 2024, according to a tracker by Education Week.
Republicans banished Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones last week over their role in the protest on the House floor over the shooting, which left three children and three adults dead. The expulsions drew national support for the newly dubbed "Tennessee Three," especially for Pearson and Jones' campaign fundraising. The two raised more than $2 million combined through about 70,400 campaign donations from across the country. The amount is well beyond the norm for Tennessee's Republican legislative leaders and virtually unheard of for two freshman Democrats in a superminority. House Republican leaders have repeatedly denied that race was a factor in the expulsion hearings.
On April 6, 2023, the Tennessee House of Representatives voted on House resolution 63 to expel Pearson, and on April 12, 2023, the Shelby County Commission voted to reinstate him.[2]Click here to learn more. Upon his election, Pearson became one of the youngest lawmakers in Tennessee. Commissioners Wednesday praised Pearson as a representative who is fighting against injustice.
GOP members have said they would recognize Jones and Pearson as members if they are reelected. In Tennessee, lawmakers also can’t be expelled for the same offense for a second time. “If after looking at [Jones’s] conduct, they vote he come back, we will recognize him as a representative,” Rep. Gino Bulso, one of the Republicans who introduced the expulsion resolutions, told the Tennessean. Nashville officials vote to reinstate one of the Black Democratic lawmakers expelled by Republicans over a gun protest after a school shooting. In Tennessee, Republican lawmakers have been supportive of the idea to strengthen school safety, but they have largely rejected calls for stricter gun controls with only weeks to go in the legislative session.
The people of @brotherjones_ and @Justinjpearson’s districts were disenfranchised today. I’m proud that Metro Council is meeting Monday to fill the vacancy left in Nashville by today’s vote, & I believe they’ll send @brotherjones_ right back to continue serving his constituents. The two vacant seats will be filled, and both Jones and Pearson could soon return to the legislature. According to the Tennessee state Constitution, because there are less than 12 months before the next election, the successor is to be elected by the legislative body of the replaced legislator's county of residence.
Sexton later cleared the galleries, with troopers flooding into the Capitol rotunda to block access from much of the hallway. “This is nothing but a bad disaster and tragedy waiting to happen if we do not ensure personal responsibility," House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, said. "Our children’s lives are at stake." Armed teachers, who will be required to undergo training that some opponents have argued is not intensive enough, will be allowed to carry handguns in their classrooms and in most campus situations without informing parents and most of their colleagues they're armed. Tennessee House Republicans said on social media that if Jones and Pearson return to the House, they hope that the duo will "act as the thousands who have come before them — with respect for our institution, their fellow colleagues and the seat they hold." "Unfortunately, we were obligated to levy unprecedented consequences on those members today. Our focus continues to be on the six innocent lives that were brutally taken last week at the Covenant School, not those who have chosen to make this tragedy about themselves."
Lawmakers are also poised to pass a bill that would move control of the board that oversees Nashville’s airport from local appointments to selections by Republican state government leaders. Republicans this year introduced a wave of punishing proposals to strip away the Nashville city government’s autonomy. Others have pushed to abolish the state’s few community oversight boards that investigate police misconduct and replace them with advisory panels that would be blocked from investigating complaints. Pearson joins Jones in returning to the Capitol at a time when political divisions between the state’s few Democratic strongholds and the GOP supermajority are at a boiling point. He gained a reputation as a skilled community activist and gifted public speaker. A proud native Memphian, Pearson is the fourth son of five boys born to teenage parents.
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