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  • State Rep. Gloria Johnson of ‘Tennessee Three’ launches US Senate bid | CNN Politics

    State Rep. Gloria Johnson of ‘Tennessee Three’ launches US Senate bid | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Tennessee Rep. Gloria Johnson, who made national headlines earlier this year as one of three lawmakers facing expulsion over protesting for more gun control on the state House floor, announced a longshot bid for the US Senate on Tuesday.

    “We need somebody that’s gonna care about Tennessee families and lifting them up and making sure that it’s them that we’re trying to cut costs and not cutting costs for corporations and billionaires. We’ve got to make sure that Tennessee families are earning a good wage, have access to affordable health care, have great schools for their kids, and can live in dignity and be able to retire,” Johnson said during remarks, according to a campaign news release.

    Johnson first made national headlines when she and state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson advocated for gun reform measures in late March following a mass shooting that devastated a Nashville school. They all faced expulsion after Republicans in the chamber accused them of “knowingly and intentionally” bringing “disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives” for leading the protest. Jones and Pearson, who are Black, were expelled – but Johnson, who is White, was not, a decision she categorized as racially motivated at the time.

    Pearson will serve as a co-chair on the campaign, according to the news release.

    Johnson faces long odds in her hopes of unseating Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn in the deep red state of Tennessee, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1990.

    Nonetheless, some of Johnson’s campaign video was aimed at Blackburn’s stance on reproductive rights and her voting record on lowering prescription costs.

    “Look, I’m 6’3. I’m not afraid to stand up to anyone when it comes to doing what’s right for Tennessee, especially Marsha Blackburn, and that’s why I’m running for Senate,” Johnson said.

    First, Johnson will have to win the Democratic primary, where she already has company. Memphis environmental activist Marquita Bradshaw, the Democratic Senate nominee in 2020 who lost to Republican Bill Hagerty, announced in July that she would challenge Blackburn.

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  • Tennessee House GOP expels 2 Democrats in retaliation over gun control protest, on ‘sad day for democracy’ | CNN

    Tennessee House GOP expels 2 Democrats in retaliation over gun control protest, on ‘sad day for democracy’ | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Two Democratic members of the Tennessee House of Representatives were expelled while a third member was spared in an ousting by Republican lawmakers that was decried by the trio as oppressive, vindictive and racially motivated.

    Protesters packed the state Capitol on Thursday to denounce the expulsions of Reps. Justin Jones and Rep. Justin Pearson and to advocate for gun reform measures a little over a week after a mass shooting devastated a Nashville school.

    Speaking to CNN’s Don Lemon on “CNN This Morning,” Jones decried the actions of House Republicans.

    “What happened yesterday was a very sad day for democracy,” Jones said. “The nation was able to see we don’t have democracy in Tennessee.”

    Jones confirmed if he is reappointed to the seat by the 40-member Nashville Metro Council, he would serve. “I have no regrets. I will continue to stand up for my constituents.”

    Nashville City Council Member Russ Bradford told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota he would be voting to send Jones back to the State House.

    “That is who the people of House District 52 elected this last November and so it’s very important that, unlike my state legislature, I will listen to the voice of my constituents and I will do what needs to be done to support democracy in this state,” Bradford said.

    Following their expulsion – which House Republicans said was in response to the representatives’ leadership of gun control demonstrations on the chamber floor last week – Jones and Pearson called for protesters to return to the Capitol when the House is back in session on Monday.

    Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is White and wasn’t ousted, slammed the votes removing Jones and Pearson, who are Black, as racist. Asked by CNN why she believes she wasn’t expelled, Johnson said the reason is “pretty clear.”

    “I am a 60-year-old White woman, and they are two young Black men,” Johnson said. She added that Pearson and Jones were questioned in a “demeaning way” by lawmakers before their expulsion.

    President Joe Biden on Thursday called the expulsions “shocking, undemocratic and without precedent,” and criticized Republicans for not taking greater action on gun reform.

    Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Nashville Friday to advocate for stricter gun control measures and highlight the importance of protecting Americans from gun violence. She also privately met with Jones, Pearson and Johnson.

    “We understand when we took an oath to represent the people who elected us that we speak on behalf of them. It wasn’t about the three of these leaders,” Harris said in remarks after the meeting. “It was about who they were representing. it’s about whose voices they were channeling. Understand that — and is that not what a democracy allows?”

    After a shooter killed three 9-year-old students and three adults at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville last week, Jones, Pearson and Johnson staged a demonstration on the House floor calling for gun reform and leading chants with a bullhorn.

    Jones said he and the other lawmakers had been blocked from speaking about gun violence on the House floor that week, saying that their microphones were cut off whenever they raised the topic, according to CNN affiliate WSMV.

    Following the three representatives’ demonstrations last Thursday, Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton called their actions “unacceptable” and argued that they broke “several rules of decorum and procedure on the House floor.”

    On Monday, three resolutions were filed seeking the expulsions of Jones, Pearson and Johnson. The three members had already been removed from their committee assignments following the protest.

    The resolutions, filed by Republican Reps. Bud Hulsey, Gino Bulso and Andrew Farmer, said the lawmakers “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor” to the House.

    Tennessee Republican Caucus Chair Jeremy Faison told CNN that the caucus believed the issue did not need to be considered by an ethics committee and accused Jones and Pearson of having a “history” of disrupting floor proceedings.

    “It’s not possible for us to move forward with the way they were behaving in committee and on the House floor,” Faison said.

    The chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party, Hendrell Remus, called the move a “direct political attack” on the party.

    “Their expulsion sets a dangerous new precedent for political retribution,” a statement from the party said. “The day that a majority can simply expel a member of the opposing party without legitimate cause threatens the fabric of democracy in our state and creates a reckless roadmap for GOP controlled state legislatures across the nation.”

    Historically, the Tennessee House had only expelled two other representatives since the Reconstruction, and the move requires a two-thirds majority vote of total members.

    The expulsions have been criticized by Democratic politicians and civil liberties groups who say voters in Jones’ and Pearson’s districts have been disenfranchised. Others, including Jones, have said the move distracts from the real problem of gun violence.

    “Rather than address the issue of banning assault weapons, my former colleagues – a Republican supermajority – are assaulting democracy,” Jones told CNN. “And that should scare all of us across the nation.”

    Rep. Sam McKenzie, chair of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators, said the expulsion of Jones and Pearson overshadowed the issue they were protesting.

    “This was not about that kangaroo court that happened yesterday. This was about those three young children and those three guardians, those three adults, whose lives were taken away senselessly,” McKenzie said.

    “The world saw what happened yesterday,” McKenzie added, condemning the actions of House GOP leaders. “They ought to be ashamed of themselves.”

    The NAACP also condemned the expulsions, calling them “horrific” but “not surprising.”

    “It is inexcusable that, while (Jones and Pearson) upheld their oath to serve Tennesseans who are grieving the loss of last week’s mass murder, their colleagues decided to use racial tropes to divert attention from their failure to protect the people they are supposed to serve,” NAACP President & CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

    “We will continue to stand with these champions of democracy, and are prepared to take whatever legal action is necessary to ensure that this heinous attempt to silence the voice of the people is addressed in a court of law,” Johnson added.

    On “CNN This Morning,” Jones said, “I think what happened was a travesty of democracy because they expelled the two youngest Black lawmakers – which is no coincidence – from the Tennessee state legislature because we are outspoken, because we fight for our district.”

    Jones described the session as a “toxic, racist work environment,” and said he spoke out because the House speaker ruled him out of order when he brought up the issue of gun violence. “If I didn’t know this happened to me, I would think that this was 1963 instead of 2023,” he added.

    Justin Jones carries his name tag after he is expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives on April 6, 2023.

    Prior to the vote, Pearson publicly shared a letter he sent to House members in which he said he took accountability for “not following decorum” on the House floor but defended his actions.

    Following their removal, pictures and profiles of Pearson and Jones have been pulled from the Tennessee General Assembly’s website and their districts have been listed as vacant.

    More about the three representatives:

    Rep. Justin Pearson:

  • District: 86
  • Age: 28
  • In office: 2023-
  • Issues: Environmental, racial and economic justice
  • Of note: Successfully blocked oil pipeline from being built in south Memphis
  • Recent awards: The Root’s 100 Most Influential Black Americans (2022)Rep. Gloria Johnson:
  • District: 90
  • Age: 60
  • In office: 2013-2015, 2019-
  • Issues: Education, jobs, health care
  • Of note: Successfully organized in favor of Insure Tennessee, the state’s version of Medicaid expansion
  • Recent awards: National Foundation of Women Legislators Women of Excellence (2022)Rep. Justin Jones:
  • District: 52
  • Age: 27
  • In office: 2023-
  • Issues: Health care, environmental justice
  • Of note: Wrote “The People’s Plaza: 62 Days of Nonviolent Resistance” after helping to organize a 2022 sit-in
  • Recent awards: Ubuntu Award for outstanding service, Vanderbilt Organization of Black Graduate and Professional Students (2019)

According to the Tennessee Constitution, since there is more than twelve months until the next general election in November 2024, a special election will be held to fill the seats.

Tennessee law allows for the appointment of interim House members to fill the seats of expelled lawmakers until an election is held by local legislative bodies.

In Jones’ case, the local legislative body is the Metropolitan Council of Davidson County in Nashville. The council has scheduled a special meeting Monday afternoon to address the vacancy of the District 52 seat and possibly vote on an interim successor.

For Pearson’s District 86 seat, the local legislative body is the Shelby County Board of Commissioners in Memphis.

It is unclear if or when a special meeting might be called there.

According to Johnson, Jones and Pearson could be reappointed to their seats.

“I think we might have these two young men back very soon,” Johnson said Thursday. “It is my promise to fight like hell to get both of them back.”

Pearson said he hopes to “get reappointed to serve in the state legislature by the Shelby County Commissioners, and a lot of them, I know, are upset about the anti-democratic behavior of this White supremacist-led state legislature.”

Speaking to a crowd following their expulsion, Pearson and Jones insisted they would persist in advocating for gun control measures and encouraged protesters to continue showing up to the Capitol.

The House has only expelled two state representatives in the last 157 years. 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.

Democratic Rep. Joe Towns called the move a “nuclear option.”

“You never use a sledgehammer to kill a gnat,” Towns said. “We should not go to the extreme of expelling our members for fighting for what many of the citizens want to happen, whether you agree with it or not.”

The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, Kathy Sinback, called the move in a statement a “targeted expulsion of two Black legislators without due process.”

She continued, “It raises questions about the disparate treatment of Black representatives, while continuing the shameful legacy of disenfranchising and silencing the voices of marginalized communities and the Black lawmakers they elect.”

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  • What happens next after the Tennessee House ousted 2 Democrats | CNN

    What happens next after the Tennessee House ousted 2 Democrats | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Just hours after the Tennessee House of Representatives voted to expel two Democratic lawmakers, their pictures and profiles had already been removed from the state’s General Assembly website, a symbol of the vacant seats that now need to be filled.

    Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were kicked out of the legislature by their colleagues in a vote Thursday. A third member also up for expulsion, Rep. Gloria Johnson, survived the vote, which required two-thirds majority support in the Republican-dominated chamber.

    All three had been accused by Republicans of “knowingly and intentionally” bringing “disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives” after they led a gun control protest on the House floor last month without being recognized, CNN affiliate WSMV reported.

    In the wake of a deadly shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, which killed three 9-year-olds and three adults, Jones said he and other lawmakers were blocked from raising the issue of gun violence on the House floor, with their microphones being cut off whenever they raised the topic, according to WSMV.

    According to the expulsion resolutions, Jones, Pearson and Johnson “began shouting without recognition” during their protest, and “proceeded to disrupt the proceedings of the House Representatives.”

    Republican leaders in the chamber condemned the lawmakers’ actions and moved quickly to remove their committee assignments and schedule a vote for their expulsion. Jones, Pearson and Johnson decried the Republicans’ actions as oppressive, vindictive and racially motivated. Jones and Pearson are both young, Black men while Johnson is a White woman.

    As focus now shifts to filling the two new vacancies in the state House, local lawmakers in Jones’ and Pearson’s districts are working to determine their next steps, including possibly returning the ousted lawmakers to the chamber.

    According to the Tennessee Constitution, since there is more than twelve months until the next general election in November 2024, a special election will be held to fill the seats.

    In the time between when a seat becomes vacant and when a special election can be held, “the legislative body of the replaced legislator’s county of residence at the time of his or her election may elect an interim successor,” the state Constitution says.

    In Jones’ case, the local legislative body is the Metropolitan Council of Davidson County in Nashville. The council has scheduled a special meeting on Monday afternoon to address the vacancy of the District 52 seat and possibly vote on an interim successor.

    Nashville Mayor John Cooper has expressed his support for Jones and said on Twitter he believes the council will send him “right back to continue serving his constituents.”

    Jones told CNN’s Don Lemon on Friday that if he’s appointed by the council, he will serve. “I have no regrets. I will continue to stand up for my constituents,” he said.

    For Pearson’s District 86 seat, the local legislative body is the Shelby County Board of Commissioners in Memphis.

    Commission chairman Mickell Lowery plans to call a special meeting regarding Pearson’s expulsion, CNN affiliate WMC reported, but the timing of the meeting isn’t yet known.

    Pearson said he hopes to “get reappointed to serve in the state legislature,” and referring to the Shelby County commissioners, he said, “A lot of them, I know, are upset about the anti-democratic behavior of this White supremacist-led state legislature.”

    No date has been set for a special election but state law provides a time frame for when the governor should schedule them.

    A “writ of election” for “primary elections for nominations by statewide political parties to fill the vacancy” must be scheduled within 55 to 60 days, state code says. And a general election to fill the vacancy must be scheduled within 100 to 107 days.

    According to Tennessee law, a state representative must be at least 21 years old, a US citizen, a resident of the state for at least three years and a resident of their county for one year preceding the election.

    They must also be a qualified voter of the district, which requires a resident to be 18 years old and free of certain felony convictions.

    Both Jones and Pearson meet those qualifications.

    And while the state Constitution says members can be expelled for disorderly behavior with a two-thirds majority vote, they cannot be expelled “a second time for the same offense.”

    If Jones and Pearson are elected again, the Tennessee House Republican Caucus said in a statement it hopes “they will act as the thousands who have come before them – with respect for our institution, their fellow colleagues, and the seat that they hold.”

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  • A momentous political showdown in Tennessee lays bare a new chapter in US politics | CNN Politics

    A momentous political showdown in Tennessee lays bare a new chapter in US politics | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Tennessee Republicans’ ruthless use of their state House supermajority to expel two young Black lawmakers for breaching decorum exposed a torrent of political forces that are transforming American politics at the grassroots.

    The GOP action, after the lawmakers had led a gun control protest from the House floor in response to last week’s Nashville school shooting, created a snapshot of how two halves of a diversifying and increasingly self-estranged nation are being pulled apart.

    A day of soaring tensions inside and outside the state House chamber thrust the Volunteer State into the national spotlight in an extraordinary political coda to the mass shooting in which six people, including three 9-year-olds, were gunned down.

    The drama laid bare intense frustration among some voters at the failure to pass firearms reform – and the growing clash between Democrats from liberal cities and a Republican Party that is willing to use its rural conservative power base to curtail democracy. Given the national attention, the showdown could backfire on the GOP with voters who balk at its extremist turn. And it turned two lawmakers – whom most Americans had never heard of – into overnight heroes of the progressive movement.

    The Democrats – Justin Pearson and Justin Jones – were thrown out of their seats in a move that effectively canceled out the votes of their tens of thousands of constituents, simply for infringing the rules of the chamber – an almost unheard of sanction across the country.

    But a third Democrat – Gloria Johnson, a White woman who also joined the gun control protest – escaped expulsion after Republicans failed to muster the required two-thirds majority. The discrepancy raised suggestions of racial discrimination and made an acrimonious day even uglier.

    Republicans said that the Democrats had interrupted the people’s business with their protest, arguing that democracy couldn’t work if lawmakers refused to abide by the rules. But the Democrats have long warned their voices are being silenced by the hardline GOP supermajority and accused Republicans of infringing their rights to free expression and dissent.

    “We called for you all to ban assault weapons, and you respond with an assault on democracy,” Jones told Republican legislators on Thursday as he spoke before the House in his own defense.

    At its most basic level, the clash underscored the utter polarization between Republicans and Democrats about how to respond to mass shootings, which pass with little or no significant action to prevent the endless sequence of such tragedies.

    Although it did pass a measure intended to enhance school security, the Tennessee state House essentially decided to use its near unchecked power to protect its behavioral rules rather than take any action to make it harder for mass killers to get deadly weapons. In a deep-red state like Tennessee, this is not a surprise. But the fury and even desperation of lawmakers like Pearson and Jones and the hundreds of protesters at the state capitol on Thursday reflect increasing anger among the majority of Americans who want tougher gun restrictions but find their hopes dashed by Republican legislatures.

    In Tennessee, that frustration over the endless deaths of innocents erupted into activism.

    One protester, teacher Kevin Foster, said the aftermath of the Nashville school shooting had been “deeply, deeply painful.”

    And he tearfully called on Tennessee legislators to do something to stop more school shootings. “Just listen to us, there is absolutely no reason you should have assault rifles available to citizens in the public. It serves absolutely no purpose and it brings death and destruction on children,” Foster told CNN’s Ryan Young.

    The severe penalties meted out by the legislature for a rules infraction, which did not involve violence or incitement, also underscored another increasing trend – the radicalization of the Donald Trump-era Republican Party. Critics see the way the GOP is using its legislative majorities as an abuse of power that threatens the democratic rights of millions of Americans.

    The Tennessee House has only rarely expelled members – and when it has, it’s for offenses like bribery or sexual infractions – so the treatment of Pearson and Jones, who had already had their committee assignments taken away, was regarded by Democrats as disproportionately harsh.

    The expulsions looked like a party dispensing with opponents and positions it didn’t agree with – a perspective Pearson voiced when he accused the GOP of acting to suppress ideas it would prefer not to listen to and questions it wouldn’t answer.

    “You just expelled a member for exercising their First Amendment rights!” he said.

    Tennessee Republican Caucus Chair Jeremy Faison told CNN his members were always firm in wanting the Democratic lawmakers expelled and rejected an alternative route through the House ethics committee. “The overwhelming majority, the heartbeat of this caucus, says ‘not on this House floor, not this way,’” he said. Faison added: “It is not possible for us to move forward with the way they were behaving in committee and on the House floor. There’s got to be some peace.”

    Democrats did break the rules last week – they admitted to doing so and their actions, if adopted by every legislator, would make it impossible to maintain order and free debate. Jones, for instance, used a bullhorn to lead chants of protesters in the public gallery. But the question at issue is the appropriateness of the punishments and whether the GOP majority overreached.

    One Republican, state Rep. Gino Bulso, said that Jones – with his dramatic self-defense in the well of the chamber on Thursday – had made the case for his ejection because he accused the House of acting dishonorably.

    “He and two other representatives effectively conducted a mutiny on March the 30th of 2023 in this very chamber,” Bulso said. State House Speaker Cameron Sexton had previously compared the gun control protest to the mob attack by Trump’s supporters on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

    But this appeared an absurd analogy. While the protest in the Tennessee chamber did disrupt regular order, it wasn’t anti-democratic, nor was it designed to interrupt the transfer of power from one president to the next, like the Capitol riot briefly did. And the behavior of the three Democratic lawmakers, while irregular, was not that unusual in a riotous political age. US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and other Republicans, for instance, heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address this year. And Trump this week attacked a New York judge as biased and singled out his family after becoming the first ex-president to be charged with a crime.

    The racial backdrop of Thursday’s vote could not be ignored after Johnson was reprieved by a single vote. She told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota that she believed race helped explain the differing outcomes.

    “I think it is pretty clear. I am a 60-year-old White woman, and they are two young Black men,” Johnson said, adding that she thought the Republicans questioned Jones and Pearson in a demeaning way.

    US Rep. Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat, didn’t rule out the possibility that discrimination was behind the expulsion of Jones and Pearson but not Johnson.

    “I am not saying race wasn’t (the reason) – but I haven’t looked at the numbers to see if gender might not have had a play in it, and also maybe some seniority, and also some folks that were on a committee with her,” Cohen told CNN’s Bianna Golodryga.

    The question is especially acute since Pearson and Jones were arguing that their voices – and those of hundreds of thousands of Black Americans in the state’s diverse cities – were being silenced by a largely White Republican majority.

    “I represent 78,000 people, and when I came to the well that day, I was not standing for myself,” Jones said. “I was standing for those young people … many of whom can’t even vote yet, many of whom are disenfranchised. But all of whom are terrified by the continued trend of mass shooting plaguing our state and plaguing this nation.”

    Jones, from Nashville, and Pearson, from Memphis, are representative of a new generation of politically active Americans. Their background in activism and compelling rhetorical styles speak to a kind of politics that is more confrontational than the outwardly genteel but hardball power plays preferred by some of their older Republican colleagues in the legislature.

    At times, the speeches by both lawmakers invoked the atmospherics of the civil rights movement and may augur a new brand of urgent activism by younger citizens – like the multi-racial crowd of protesters who greeted Pearson and Jones as heroes after they left the chamber.

    The topic of the showdown – over infringements of the decorum of the state House – also had uncomfortable racial echoes as they implied, deliberately or not, that the two young Black Americans did not understand the proper way to behave in public life.

    “It’s very scary for the nation to see what’s happening here. If I didn’t know that it was happening to me, I would think this was 1963 instead of 2023,” Jones told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

    More broadly, Pearson and Jones also represent a cementing reality of the American political map in which growing liberal and racially diverse cities and suburbs are increasingly clashing with legislatures dominated by Republicans from more rural areas.

    This dynamic is playing out on multiple issues – including abortion, crime and voting rights – in states like Georgia and Texas. In Florida, meanwhile, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is using his big reelection win and GOP control of both chambers of the state legislature to drive home a radical America First-style conservative agenda that he’s using as a platform for a possible presidential campaign. Some Republicans see similar trends in Democratic-majority California.

    In Tennessee, as Democratic state House Rep. Joe Towns put it, the GOP used a nuclear option by deploying their supermajority to suppress the ability of minority Democrats to speak.

    “You never use a sledgehammer to kill a gnat,” Towns said. “We should not go to the extreme of expelling our members for fighting for what many of the citizens want to happen, whether you agree with it or not.”

    Pearson was specific in viewing his expulsion as being about far more than a thwarted gun control protest.

    “We are losing our democracy to White supremacy, we are losing our democracy to patriarchy, we are losing our democracy to people who want to keep a status quo that is damning to the rest of us and damning to our children and unborn people,” he said.

    The political crisis in Tennessee quickly got national attention.

    Biden described the expulsions as “shocking, undemocratic and without precedent” and lambasted Republicans for not doing more to prevent school shootings.

    “Americans want lawmakers to act on commonsense gun safety reforms that we know will save lives. But instead, we’ve continued to see Republican officials across America double down on dangerous bills that make our schools, places of worship, and communities less safe,” he said in a statement.

    Republicans in Tennessee had their own political reasons for acting against the trio of Democratic lawmakers. But by making national figures of Pearson and Jones and by handing the White House a new example of GOP extremism, their efforts may have badly backfired.

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  • Tennessee House expels 1 lawmaker, falls short of ousting another while 3rd awaits vote | CNN

    Tennessee House expels 1 lawmaker, falls short of ousting another while 3rd awaits vote | CNN

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    Nashville
    CNN
     — 

    A vote to expel Democratic Rep. Gloria Johnson from Tennessee’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives has failed, a week after she and two other Democrats led a gun reform protest on the House floor. The House earlier expelled Rep. Justin Jones over that protest, which followed a deadly mass shooting at a Nashville school.

    The third Democrat involved, Justin Pearson, also faces a possible vote on his removal from office Thursday.

    The vote over rules violations for Johnson was 65-30. Expulsion from the House requires a two-thirds majority of the total membership. The vote for Jones split along party lines, 72-25.

    Protesters flooded the state Capitol on Thursday as the legislators were set to take up three resolutions filed by GOP lawmakers Monday seeking to expel Jones, of Nashville, Johnson of Knoxville and Pearson of Memphis, a step the state House has taken only twice since the 1860s.

    “There comes a time where people get sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Jones said in a speech prior to a vote on his expulsion. “And so my colleagues, I say that what we did was act in our responsibility as legislators to serve and give voice to the grievances of people who have been silenced.”

    “We called for you all to ban assault weapons,” he said, “and you respond with an assault on democracy.”

    Jones added: “How can you bring dishonor to an already dishonorable house?”

    Jones’ vote took place after two hours of debate that included Jones answering questions regarding his actions during a protest last Thursday over calls for gun violence legislation. Johnson’s vote followed about an hour and a half of discussion.

    Throughout the day, crowds have gathered outside and inside the building. Following the vote to expel Jones, those inside the Capitol gallery raised their fists and erupted in boos.

    After a Democratic motion to adjourn until Monday was voted down, Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton admonished the people in the balcony for yelling, saying if their “disruptive behavior” continued they would clear the area of everyone but the media.

    “That’s the one warning,” he said.

    Cheers filled the Capitol following the failed vote to expel Johnson.

    “We did what we needed to do,” Johnson said to reporters outside the chamber.

    Johnson thanked the crowd that was gathered around the building and encouraged them to vote. “Keep showing up, standing up and speaking out and we will be with you,” she added.

    Johnson, who is White, was asked why there was a difference in the outcome for her and Jones, who is Black-Filipino.

    “I will answer your question. It might have to do with the color of our skin,” she said.

    President Joe Biden criticized the proceedings in Nashville in a tweet.

    “Three kids and three officials gunned down in yet another mass shooting. And what are GOP officials focused on? Punishing lawmakers who joined thousands of peaceful protesters calling for action. It’s shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent,” he wrote.

    The three lawmakers led a protest on the House floor last Thursday without being recognized, CNN affiliate WSMV reported, using a bullhorn as demonstrators at the state Capitol called on lawmakers to take action to prevent further gun violence after a mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville left three 9-year-olds and three adults dead. Each lawmaker was removed from their committee assignments following last week’s demonstrations.

    Discussion Thursday began with Republicans playing footage of the protest last week, showing Jones, Johnson and Pearson standing in the well of the House and using the bullhorn to address their colleagues and protesters in the gallery.

    Democrats were opposed to having the footage played, arguing it was unfair because they had not seen the video themselves and did not know the extent to which it had been edited.

    Democratic Whip Jason Powell, who represents Nashville, said he was “outraged” and “expelling Justin Jones is not the answer.”

    He angrily said the House was spending too much time on the expulsion issue.

    “I had to leave here Monday night after this resolution was introduced and go to my son’s Little League field and see red ribbons surrounding the outfield in memory of William Kinney who was murdered and I am outraged, and we should all be outraged,” he said, his voice rising. “We need to do something and expelling Justin Jones is not the answer. It is a threat to democracy.”

    More about the three representatives:

    Rep. Justin Pearson:District: 86
    Age: 28
    In office: 2023-
    Issues: Environmental, racial and economic justice
    Of note: Successfully blocked oil pipeline from being built in south Memphis
    Recent awards: The Root’s 100 Most Influential Black Americans (2022)Rep. Gloria Johnson:District: 90
    Age: 60
    In office: 2013-2015, 2019-
    Issues: Education, jobs, health care
    Of note: Successfully organized in favor of Insure Tennessee, the state’s version of Medicaid expansion
    Recent awards: National Foundation of Women Legislators Women of Excellence (2022)Rep. Justin Jones:District: 52
    Age: 27
    In office: 2023-
    Issues: Health care, environmental justice
    Of note: Wrote “The People’s Plaza: 62 Days of Nonviolent Resistance” after helping to organize a 2022 sit-in
    Recent awards: Ubuntu Award for outstanding service, Vanderbilt Organization of Black Graduate and Professional Students (2019)

    “This is not just about losing my job,” Jones told “CNN This Morning” on Wednesday, saying constituents of the three representatives “are being taken and silenced by a party that is acting like authoritarians.”

    As he left the Capitol on Thursday, Jones said he is not sure what his next steps are following his expulsion.

    “I will continue to show up to this Capitol with these young people whether I’m in that chamber or outside,” Jones told reporters.

    In the last 157 years, the House has expelled only two lawmakers, which requires a two-thirds vote: In 1980, after a representative was found guilty of accepting a bribe while in office, and in 2016, when another was expelled over allegations of sexual harassment.

    This week, Sexton said the three Democrats’ actions “are and always will be unacceptable” and broke “several rules of decorum and procedure on the House floor.”

    Sexton said peaceful protesters have always been welcomed to the capitol to have their voices heard on any issue, but that the actions of the Democratic lawmakers had detracted from that process.

    “In effect, those actions took away the voices of the protestors, the focus on the six victims who lost their lives, and the families who lost their loved ones,” Sexton said in a series of tweets Monday.

    “We cannot allow the actions of the three members to distract us from protecting our children. We will get through this together, and it will require talking about all solutions,” Sexton said.

    During the discussion Thursday, Democratic Rep. Joe Towns called the move to expel the “nuclear option.”

    “You never use a sledgehammer to kill a gnat,” Towns said. “We should not go to the extreme of expelling our members for fighting for what many of the citizens want to happen, whether you agree with it or not.”

    The move to expel the trio drew protesters to the Capitol Thursday morning, with many wanting to express both their opposition to the lawmakers’ removal from office – chants of “We stand with the Tennessee three,” were heard outside – as well as support for gun reform legislation.

    To some, the vote to expel Johnson, Jones and Pearson was a distraction from the real issue: Keeping children safe.

    “I want people to know this is not a political issue, it’s a child issue,” Deborah Castellano, a first-grade teacher in Nashville, told CNN. “If you wash away Democrat, Republican, it’s about kids and do we want them to be safe or not. I will stand in front of children and protect as many as I can with my body … but we shouldn’t have to, and those kids shouldn’t be afraid.”

    Paul Slentz, a retired United Methodist pastor, knows two of the lawmakers personally, he said, adding it was wrong for them to face a vote for their expulsion.

    “They’re good people,” Slentz told CNN affiliate WSMV in an interview outside the Capitol. “They have strong moral convictions. They are people of faith.”

    Each of the resolutions says the lawmakers “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives,” saying they “began shouting without recognition” and “proceeded to disrupt the proceedings of the House Representatives” for just under an hour Thursday morning.

    The resolutions seek to remove the lawmakers from office under Article II, Section 12 of the Tennessee Constitution, which says, in part, the House can set its own rules and “punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”

    Republicans control the Tennessee House of Representatives by a wide margin, with 75 members to Democrats’ 23. One seat is vacant.

    The code allows for the appointment of interim members of the House until the seats of the expelled are filled by an election.

    Pearson has acknowledged he and his two colleagues may have broken House rules, both in a letter sent to House members this week and in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, acknowledging they “spoke out of order” when they walked to the well of the House.

    “We broke a House rule,” he said, “but it does not meet the threshold for actually expelling members of the House who were duly elected by their district, who sent us here to serve, and now they’re being disenfranchised by the Republican party of the state of Tennessee.”

    House Democrats expressed solidarity with Johnson, Jones and Pearson in a statement, while Rep. Sam McKenzie, of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators, called the move “political retribution.”

    “We fundamentally object to any effort to expel members for making their voices heard to end gun violence,” McKenzie said.

    The move to expel the lawmakers also drew condemnation from the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, whose executive director, Kathy Sinback, called expulsion “an extreme measure” infrequently used, “because its strips voters of representation by the people they elected.”

    “Instead of rushing to expel members for expressing their ethical convictions about crucial social issues,” Sinback said, “House leadership should turn to solving the real challenges facing our state.”

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