As the co-founder and executive director of The Equity Alliance, I am a proud democracy defender. I have marched, protested, knocked on doors, registered voters in rural communities and big cities in Tennessee, and met with Republican and Democratic leaders to work toward solutions. Despite all the work I’ve done, I must acknowledge and mourn the fact that democracy in Tennessee has died.
The Tennessee Three, as they have come to be called, were interrupting those proceedings for a good reason.
The most glaring example came Thursday when the Tennessee House voted along party lines to expel Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis for interrupting House proceedings on March 30. The House also fell one vote short of expelling Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville. All three are Democrats.
The Tennessee Three, as they have come to be called, were interrupting legislative proceedings for a good reason. On March 27, a mass shooter carried two semi-automatic rifles and a 9 mm handgun into The Covenant School in Nashville and slaughtered three 9-year-olds and three adults. Republican lawmakers had offered nothing more than empty thoughts and ineffective prayers; they had continued to idolize guns and resist common-sense legislation such as red flag laws, permitting requirements and stricter background checks.
Fed-up Tenneseeans had descended on the Tennessee Capitol to peacefully object to lawmakers’ refusal to act, and Johnson, Jones and Pearson disrupted the proceedings in the House on March 30 to highlight the discontent of voters who had elected them to speak for them.
But not only did their Republican colleagues not listen to the Tennessee Three, or any of the protesters gathered outside the legislative chambers, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, in a radio interview, brought up the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. He said, “What they did today was at least equivalent, maybe worse, depending on how you look at it, of doing an…
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