Tennessee House Goes Full Authoritarian, Expels Lawmaker for Protesting Gun Violence

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives in Tennessee voted Thursday to expel Democrat Justin Jones for participating in a protest against gun violence last week, following a school shooting in Nashville that left three children and three adults dead. Republicans are also targeting two other Democratic representatives, Gloria Johnson and Justin Pearson, with expulsion, in a turn of events that can only be described as full-on authoritarianism.

As Politico notes, the trio’s specific “offense” was “joining protesters who gathered in Nashville…to call for gun safety reform,” approaching the lectern “without being called on by House GOP leadership,” and toting “a bullhorn to lead chants on the House floor,” which temporarily caused a suspension in legislative business. In a typical bit of Republican shamelessness, House Speaker Cameron Sexton likened their actions to “an insurrection.” (Just to be clear: The group’s protest did not cause lawmakers to flee the scene in fear of their lives, involve chants calling for anyone to be hanged, or result in the deaths of five people, like a certain Washington, DC, riot did in 2021.)

Jones was expelled in a vote of 72-25. Ahead of his expulsion, the freshman lawmaker castigated his GOP colleagues for doing nothing to stop gun violence. “Your flexing of false power has awakened a generation of people who will let you know your time is up,” he said, per Politico. Like Republicans across the country, those in Tennessee have rejected pleas for tighter restrictions on firearms. Instead, they’ve focused on measures that do not go to the root of the problem; on Thursday, the Tennessee House passed a bill that would require schools to, per The New York Times, “require schools to conduct annual drills, keep all entrance doors locked, and install a mobile panic-alert system.”