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- House floor chaos, accusations between members
- Texas truck inspections cost $32M a day, official …
- Second Expelled Democrat Is Sent Back to Tennessee House
- Opinion by Rep. Justin Pearson: Why expelling me from the legislature backfired on Tennessee Republicans
- Justin J. PearsonTN House Representative for District 86
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The expected move from commissioners means Pearson could be back in the state House as early as Thursday, less than a week after he and Rep. Justin Jones, who represents Davidson County, were expelled from their seats. Hundreds of supporters marched Justin Pearson through Memphis to the Shelby County Board of Commissioners meeting, chanting and cheering before entering the commission chambers, where officials quickly voted 7-0 to restore him to his position. State Rep. Justin Pearson, of Memphis, was sworn in Thursday outside the Statehouse. The day before, Shelby County commissioners unanimously voted to reinstate him.
House floor chaos, accusations between members
"I also think it’s a parent’s job to know if their child is being put at risk by having someone in the classroom with a firearm that another child could find, that could be discharged and actually harm them or other kids. "We worked with the Senate and representative sponsors of this bill to make it even a little bit safer — anything, really — and I'm utterly disappointed that that was not taken into consideration," she said. Sarah Shoop Neumann's letter criticized gaps in training and burdening teachers with the responsibilities of confronting an assailant with a gun while keeping an entire classroom safe.
Texas truck inspections cost $32M a day, official …
"It's a weapon — and a weapon on both sides. If someone called a racist, the fall out, like, oh, no, this is the worst thing ever." He's compared his fellow Republicans to the Klan, calling them "the white sheets caucus." As for the scene, shouting at a Republican colleague on the House floor and calling him a racist, that is not a unique occurrence for Jones. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — He may be the most polarizing person on Tennessee's Capitol Hill — people either love him or hate him.
Second Expelled Democrat Is Sent Back to Tennessee House
The bill passed the Tennessee Senate committee, but Briggs has delayed further discussion about it with the full Senate so lawmakers can sort out its impact. Briggs stated in a committee meeting last week that if the bill is signed by Gov. Bill Lee before April 4, the qualifying deadline for state and federal office, it could ban 2024 candidates like Johnson from being listed twice on a ballot. State Sen. Richard Briggs, R-Knox County, introduced a billthat would prevent a person from running for more than one public office in the same election. While there is nothing on Tennessee's books barring someone from simultaneously running for a state and national office right now, Republicans are hoping to change that. Johnson is pulling a bid not just for one seat this next election, but for two.
Opinion by Rep. Justin Pearson: Why expelling me from the legislature backfired on Tennessee Republicans
But Sanford predicted the expulsions would lead young people in Tennessee to get more involved with their state's politics. Pearson and Jones are returning to the legislature on an interim basis, but they can both run in a special election to regain the seat until the next general election, in 2024. Many voluntarily left, but one woman refused, prompting Democratic lawmakers to call out from the floor that she was sitting quietly. Democratic lawmakers said the budget proposal was out of touch and failed to address the problems facing most families. Some opponents of the budget’s priorities were kicked out of the House gallery after many shouted during the floor session.
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As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp noted, data suggests Tennessee was already the least democratic state in the US ahead of the expulsions. That same data found that GOP control of a state led to an increased embrace of anti-democratic tendencies. And those trends have some pro-democracy advocates — including the three Democratic lawmakers — concerned the Tennessee GOP’s actions may inspire other Republican-dominant legislatures to use their power to penalize or remove those who they don’t agree with. "Gun violence is impacting and hurting every part of our community, and all people within our community, and the solutions offered are not good enough," Pearson said. Upon Pearson’s return to the House floor, lawmakers debated legislation that deals with the teaching of “divisive concepts” regarding race, gender and sex on college campuses.
Like most mass killers, the Nashville shooter acquired the guns they used legally. Nashville Mayor John Cooper has said stronger laws could have prevented three mass shootings in his city, including the recent tragedy at the Covenant School. "This is the Democracy that is going to transform a broken nation and a broken state into the place that God calls for it to be," he said.
Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, were expelled by Tennessee Republicans last week for interrupting House business amid gun reform protests at the Capitol on March 30, just days after the deadly Covenant school shooting rocked Nashville and the nation. Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, survived an expulsion effort by a single vote. Republicans expelled Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones last week over their role in a protest against gun violence on the House floor after a Nashville school shooting that left three children and three adults dead. NASHVILLE — Local officials unanimously voted on Wednesday to send Justin J. Pearson, one of two Black Democratic representatives ousted from the Tennessee House of Representatives after a gun control protest on the House floor, back to his seat in the state legislature. He and fellow state representative Justin Jones were expelled in April 2023, for violating decorum rules by participating in a gun control protest on the House floor. He was reappointed by a unanimous vote of the members present at the Shelby County Board of Commissioners.
Formerly expelled Tennessee House lawmaker says he’s been stripped of committee assignment - The Hill
Formerly expelled Tennessee House lawmaker says he’s been stripped of committee assignment.
Posted: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
With lawmakers looking to wrap up session as soon as possible, Jones could be effectively silenced for the rest of the 2024 session. Shipman-Dorrance, a Davidson County teacher and parent, has worked to advocate for gun reform for the last year. She said she grew frustrated watching lawmakers chat, scroll on their phones and eat their lunch on the House floor while the bill was debated, leading her to yell out from the public gallery.
Inside the Capitol, Phillip Shade, a former Metro teacher and Vietnam War veteran, said he had to come to the statehouse to meet Pearson. Shade opposes plans to put additional armed guards in schools, which he warned would turn schools into "armed encampments." Outside the House chamber, Shade ran into Pearson and shook his hand. Political tensions rose when Pearson, Johnson and Jones on the House floor joined with hundreds of demonstrators who packed the Capitol last month to call for passage of gun safety measures. On April 6, 2023, the Tennessee House of Representatives voted and on House resolutions 65 and 63 to expel Representatives Justin Jones (Tennessee state representative) (D) and Justin Pearson (D). House resolution 64 to expel Rep. Gloria Johnson (D) failed to pass at 65 ayes and 30 nays.
She represents the state's 90th district, part of Knox County, and is currently serving her fourth term in the legislature. Justin Pearson, 28, was the second member of the group to be expelled from the House and another of its youngest members. He was elected in a January 2023 special election after the incumbent, Barbara Cooper, had died. He represented the state's 86th district, which has about 64,000 residents and is part of Shelby County, where Memphis is located. Jones and Pearson have said that they participated in the protests specifically to speak out for constituents who felt they were not represented by the Tennessee legislature’s inaction on the issue after the mass shooting in Nashville. The legislature has said it does not plan to take up any gun control bills this year.
Lawmakers are also nearing passage of a bill that would move control of the board that oversees Nashville’s airport from local appointments to selections by Republican state government leaders. After the reinstatement vote, a throng of jubilant supporters greeted Pearson outside in a churchlike celebration. Pearson adopted the cadence of a preacher as he delivered a rousing speech with call-and-response crowd interaction. Accompanied by his fianceé, mother and four brothers, Pearson pumped his fist, jumped up and down and hugged relatives. The shooting and aftermath have pushed some, including Republican Gov. Bill Lee, to support some changes. The move briefly left about 140,000 voters in primarily Black districts in Nashville and Memphis with no representation in the Tennessee House.
Tennessee Reps. Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, who became Democratic heroes as members of the "Tennessee Three," reclaimed their legislative seats Thursday after they were expelled for involvement in a gun control protest on the House floor. Jones was reinstated to his position Monday after being expelled with Pearson by House Republicans after their demonstration on the floor of the legislature following the deadly Nashville school shooting. "We are losing our democracy in Tennessee," Pearson told WPLN before the vote to expel him from the House. The vote came less than a week after Mr. Pearson of Memphis and State Representative Justin Jones of Nashville were abruptly expelled from the legislature, just the third time such a punishment has been used in the state House since the Civil War era. Angered by the disruption of the protest and the disregard for House rules, Republicans quickly moved to expel the pair, though an effort to remove Representative Gloria Johnson, a white lawmaker from Knoxville, failed.
The removals were also only the latest action by the Republican-dominated Tennessee legislature that restricted Black political power in the state. Justin J. Pearson helped our community defeat two multi-billion dollar company’s crude oil pipeline which was stealing our land and threatening our drinking water. He helped pass three laws in Memphis and Shelby County and has continued his advocacy to stop interlocking injustices in our community. Will fight for justice in our community and has proven that no Goliath is too big for District 86 to take on.
The demonstration took place just days after a fatal shooting in Nashville at a private Christian school where a shooter killed three children and three adults. Controversy has surrounded the vote by Tennessee lawmakers to expel two members from the state legislature after they and a third member — all Democrats — took part in a protest against gun violence from the floor of the chamber. Jones, Pearson, and Johnson faced expulsion resolutions because they went to the House floor during a recent gun control protest, with Jones and Pearson leading protesters demonstrating from the chamber’s gallery in chants using a bullhorn. Those actions violated House decorum rules, Republicans said, and justified their expulsion.
Commissioner Henri Brooks, a former state representative herself, said that she’s looked behind her and seen no one to carry on her fight. The actions of the Republican supermajority in expelling two young Black men have drawn nationwide attention, and put the spotlight on Pearson, who only arrived at the state House earlier this year. GOP members this year introduced a wave of punishing proposals to strip away Nashville’s autonomy. Ultimately, Johnson, who is white, narrowly avoided expulsion while Pearson and Jones were booted by the predominantly white GOP caucus. We followed the directive of Article 2, Section 26 of the State Constitution to oppose policies injurious to the people who elected us. As a result, we were put on display in that very House to “stand trial” for our alleged offenses.
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