Nashville council votes to reinstate Black Tennessee lawmaker

Nashville council votes to reinstate expelled lawmaker Justin Jones - The Washington Post

NASHVILLE — Local officials voted Monday to reinstate one of the two Black Democratic lawmakers expelled by Republican state lawmakers for leading a gun-control protest on the House floor after a fatal school shooting.

Their expulsions last week were the latest move by Republican state leaders around the country to openly stifle dissent in a majority Republican statehouse. The actions brought once again to the fore the country’s divisions over gun control, race and freedom of speech.

Minutes before the vote, Jones entered the council chamber and jumped onto a bench and started addressing his supporters. He called the House speaker an “extremist” while vowing the younger generation would eventually succeed in enacting tougher gun laws. He then led the crowd in song

Republican leaders said the lawmakers who quickly became known as the “Tennessee Three” — Jones and Pearson, who were ousted, and Rep. Gloria Johnson, who was not — had violated the body’s rules of decorum during the March 30 protest.

Over the weekend, both Jones and Pearson were abruptly removed from the legislature’s phone directory and website. But with the council vote Monday night, Jones regained his seat before legislative leaders had time to remove his name from his office door.

Jones and Pearson, if reappointed, will still have to run for reelection in a special election since their appointment is taking place more than 12 months before the next state election in November 2024.

Tennessee state Sen. London Lamar (D), who represents part of Memphis, said the expected vote in Shelby County on Wednesday to reappoint Pearson could be closer than Monday’s vote on Jones in Nashville.

The Nashville Metro Council has 40 members, and Lamar said 29 of them have already publicly committed to supporting Jones. The Shelby County Commission has 13 members, including four Republicans.

But Lamar, a former state representative, said she is now confident that Pearson also has enough votes to be reappointed.

“In an attempt to be malicious, you have now created two political megastars who have now made history,” said Lamar, who conceded she was skeptical of the confrontation tactics that the two lawmakers had embraced to draw attention to gun violence. “I think now it is going to be hard for the Tennessee GOP to continue their covert and overt racism tactics because now the whole nation is watching.”

Both men raked in tens of thousands of campaign donations over the weekend, Lamar said.

President Biden has spoken by phone with the expelled lawmakers. Vice President Harris visited them in Nashville. The NAACP called the incident “horrific but not surprising.”

State House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R), in an interview with a Knoxville radio station, proclaimed their actions were an “insurrection” equivalent to or worse than that at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Sexton did walk back his comment on Twitter later. But he still called the Democratic lawmakers demonstrating for gun control “unacceptable,” and a violation of decorum.

Sexton, the House speaker, said that if Jones and Pearson, were reappointed, they would be seated. “The two governing bodies will make the decision as to who they want to appoint to these seats. Those two individuals will be seated as representatives as the constitution requires,” Sexton said in a statement.

With a legacy of racism, many in Jones’s district felt the Tennessee House of Representatives’ swift action to kick out the Black man who represents this area only showed that this is a still a state where White men wield the true power.

Nashville is a city of contrasts, representing the country’s divisions dating back to the Civil War. Today, the main state office building is named after former president Andrew Jackson, who owned enslaved people, while three different streets that encircle capitol grounds are named after Martin Luther King Jr., former congressman John Lewis and civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

At a rally Monday afternoon, several hundred people chanted “No Justin, No Peace” as they called for Jones to be reinstated. "The fact we have to be here is completely absurd,” said Mary Kay, 69 of Nashville. “I just wanted to be here to support the young people because the more bodies, the more representation…Power corrupts and the [Republicans] have taken this to the tenth degree, and it’s got to change.”