The Republican supermajority that controls the Tennessee House of Representatives got most of what it wanted yesterday: It expelled two of the three Democrats it charged with the unspeakable crime of speaking out of order during a March 30 session, where the three had approached the “well” of the House to show support for hundreds of Nashville teens in the gallery (and thousands more outside) protesting for gun control. But they went to the podium without being recognized, breaking a very important rule and thereby dishonoring and disrupting the House.
Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) stripped the three of their committee assignments, but that wasn’t enough, so the Democrats — state Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones, and Justin Pearson — had resolutions of expulsion filed against them, which led to yesterday’s bumblefuck in the Tennessee House. We liveblogged the entire six and a half hours of it, and short of the Benghazi committee’s 11-hour interrogation of Hillary Clinton, we don’t think we’ve ever watched a more disgusting display of rightwing bile and bigotry.
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It ended with the good old boys expelling the two young Black first-term representatives, Jones and Pearson, and a small surprise for Johnson: The final vote on her expulsion fell one vote short. Johnson, 60, is white, and has served since 2018, as well as an earlier single term from 2012 to 2014. A Republican might argue that she’s still in the House because she didn’t participate as actively in the “disgraceful” behavior, but as Johnson told reporters right after she left the chamber, “It might have to do with the color of our skin.” She got booed by a few people who heard that.
Calling A Lynching A Lynching
Once Rep. Jones, up first in Expulsionpalooza, was eventually allowed to speak, he began by noting that the outcome of the hearings had been decided in advance, and that several high ranking Republicans had said as much in the media. He said that this was going to be a lynching, not of him but of democracy in Tennessee. And wow was he right. He pointed out that, in the weekend between the protest last Thursday and Monday’s resolutions of expulsion, Speaker Sexton and other Republicans had been all over local media, claiming that the brief protest was an “insurrection”; he was especially annoyed that several suggested that the student protesters had been violent, or that they had stormed the Capitol, when they had all been admitted through the regular security process.
One Republican, Rep. Gino Bulso, was one of the Top Assholes of the day; he called the brief protest a “mutiny” and exclaimed that it was especially galling that Jones wouldn’t even admit that he had done wrong. He lectured Jones long and loud, after which Jones said he hadn’t actually heard Bulso ask a question, but that he did hear Bulso say, in effect, “what we have here is an uppity Negro.
Jones offered to apologize for breaking a House rule just as soon as Republicans apologize to the families of mass shooting victims, for passing laws that have flooded Tennessee with weapons of war. “I broke a rule,” he said, “but I did not break my oath.”
Democrats rose again and again to point out how ridiculous it was to expel members for simple rules violations; several noted times that fistfights had narrowly been averted (but threats of violence had not). Several, including Jones, recalled the case of former Rep. David Byrd (R), who was accused by three women of having sexually assaulted them in the 1980s, when they were minors and he was their high school basketball coach. Byrd was even secretly recorded apologizing to one victim, but his fellow Republicans voted against expulsion.
Republicans quickly voted to end debate, and then voted to expel Jones in less time than it took me to type this sentence. That said, I’m a terrible typist. A good typist might have banged out two sentences in the time it took to expel Jones.
Day of Betrayal
The expulsion hearing for Gloria Johnson began with her two attorneys presenting her defense; the first pointed out that it’s Holy Week, and that it was Maundy Thursday, the “Day of Betrayal” when Judas turned Jesus over to the Romans. He noted that the expulsion resolution for Rep. Johnson was flat out false, accusing her of shouting, pounding on the podium, and other actions that her two young colleagues had taken while she had simply accompanied them to the well. Any court in the state would throw those accusations out after a simple motion.
That said, he continued, protesting is the most patriotic thing a citizen can do. “America was born in protest,” he said, “and I am grateful it was!”
Bulso was Johnson’s designated questioner, and he badgered her over and over about particular moments in the protest, as if he were reconstructing a murder scene. Had she known the rules prohibit speaking at the well without permission? Didn’t she expect to face discipline? Eventually, she simply asked Bulso, “What is my crime, sir?” and, after one leading question, “I don’t think I’m going to agree with you at all.” When Bulso said that if she weren’t expelled, she would surely kill speak out of turn again, she replied, “You’re reading minds again, and I don’t like having my mind read.”
Johnson wisely spent much of her time replying perfunctorily to questions, then coming back to why the protest happened in the first place, and why she was proud to have stood with her colleagues: Democrats have been systematically silenced and ignored, and children’s lives are at stake. When her turn to present closing remarks came, she began by naming the children and adults killed at the Nashville school, as well as one of her own special ed students who died in a shooting in 2008. She closed by saying, “We want action. Our hearts demanded that we come up here to call for action.”
Then somehow, the vote came up one short of expelling her. It must help to be white and 60, and a lady at that, someone the old white Republicans can recognize as almost a colleague, even if she’s a crazy liberal. Not that the Rs would ever admit that. They were simply recognizing that, of the three Dems, she hadn’t chanted or megaphoned, that’s all. She was “the good one.”
Yeah, that must be it.
Be Careful Who You Persecute
The real star of the hearings was Rep. Justin Pearson, who was also the target of the most flagrantly racist, condescending questioning from Republicans. He had actually only been sworn in as a member of the House two weeks ago, shortly before the mass shooting that led to the protest that led to his expulsion. But my sweet Crom, he isn’t going to disappear. He began his testimony by singing, a capella, “Power to the People,” and ended his grilling an hour and a half later by preaching an Easter sermon.
He pointed out that, since rules are rules and must be obeyed, the actual House rules make clear that the proper penalty for what he, Jones, and Johnson did would be censure, not expulsion. He also reminded the House what led him and his colleagues to be in the well in the first place: “The move for justice can never die because the heart for justice can never be killed.”
Asked if he knew why he was standing before the House, Pearson said yes indeed he did: Because he’d spoken up for beautiful people murdered with an assault weapon.
Told that no, he’s there because he broke the rules of decorum, Pearson pushed back. No, he’s there to represent his constituents, to speak up for children who won’t grow up to speak. It was beautiful.
Pearson was mostly questioned by a real creep, Republican Rep. Andrew Farmer, who we kept expecting to slip up and call Pearson “Boy.” Get a load of this asshole, and enjoy Pearson’s brilliant reply:
He began with the quiet, “How many of you would want to be spoken to that way?” and built to an amazing crescendo. Like any good debater, Pearson took Farmer’s patronizing accusation that the protest was nothing more than an attention-seeking “temper tantrum” and turned it around on him. “Is elevating our voices for justice and change a temper tantrum?” He went on to invoke the children who will never have a temper tantrum again, and closed by pointing out that this country was founded by people who were dismissed as merely having a tantrum.
And he did it all extemporaneously, the way a lot of us might only fantasize we would reply to a bully — an hour afterwards.
Let’s wrap up this too-long review by watching and appreciating Pearson’s final statement, where he’s joined by members of the Black Caucus for an address that blends the Holy Week message of redemption with the ugly behavior of the Tennessee House, which is crucifying democracy. We imagine his references to Black Jesus must have particularly irked some Republican snowflakes. As a rhetoric guy, I just love Pearson’s linking Tennessee to the long dreadful Saturday before Easter: That’s where Tennessee is now, hopes crushed, the future unknowable, with only faith — and the strength of Black women — to hold onto while waiting for the Resurrection.
Rep. Pearson’s oratory wasn’t enough to move the Republicans who voted immediately to expel him. But then, they know not what they do, they never do. They created a political star who’s going to turn his two weeks (so far) in the Tennessee House into a nationally noticed career.
Now, I am not a believer, but I know when someone knows how to preach, and I will gladly join Rep. Pearson’s choir any day.
Also, we may well see both Jones and Pearson again much sooner than the next election day, since their county boards have the power to appoint their replacements. The Metropolitan Council of Davidson County seems likely to reappoint Jones, and Memphis’s Shelby County Board of Commissioners plans a meeting soon to choose a replacement; Pearson says he hopes to be reappointed, saying of the commissioners that “A lot of them, I know, are upset about the anti-democratic behavior of this white supremacist-led state legislature.” Reappointed or not, there will also be a special primary election for the seats within 55 to 60 days, followed by a special general election within 100 to 107 days.
We bet there’ll be some amazing campaign ads, as if they’re needed.
[CNN]
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