Tennessee Legislature Just Made Itself Whiter

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The Republican super-majority in the Tennessee House of Representatives had already turned itself into a national disgrace by staunchly defending the "rights" of gun-owners over the safety of children, but yesterday it compounded the disgrace by also making itself appear to be operating with racist intent.

As noted previously in this space, the Tennessee House was at the eye of a public storm - or circus - much of yesterday afternoon as it tried to conduct a full agenda of normal business before addressing a move to expel three House members at the conclusion of the business day.  Official business for the day was routinely interrupted by hecklers and protesters in the House who had been bused in from across the state, almost all of whom were there to support the legislators who facing expulsion.

The "Tennessee Three" as they were commonly being referred to in the press had been targeted for expulsion because they had led protests from the House floor in support of more effective gun control legislation.  The three, all Democrats, were accused of breaking House decorum.  There had only been two expulsions from the Tennessee House since the Civil War era, one for soliciting a bribe and the other for multiple counts of sexual harassment.  The "Tennessee Three," who were in the focus of yesterday's move to expel, included two young black representatives, Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville. as well as an older white woman, Gloria Johnson, of Knoxville.

At the end of the day both black representatives were expelled from the House, but their white colleague and co-defendant was retained in office by one vote.  When Rep. Johnson was asked why she thought that she survived the vote when the other two did not, she replied that it might have something to do with "the color of our skin."  A Republican who had voted for the expulsion of all three answered the same question by saying that the difference had been that the two males had used bullhorns in the demonstration while the female had not.   Rep. Jones, who was one of those expelled, referred the the GOP majority as a "lynch mob."

The liberal on-line newsletter @Advocacy described yesterday's vote to expel the two black representatives, but not the one who was white, this way:

"This fascistic and unilateral abuse of power is a perfect illustration of the rancid racism that animates the Republican Party, their wholehearted disdain for democracy, and their willingness to break every rule and every norm to entrench their power and to punish liberals for expressing themselves."

And while it may seem a bit unfair to paint the entire Republican Party with such a wide brush, the national political organization does seem to be drifting in the direction of its nutty fringe.   Fascism and racism are not good looks for the once "Grand Old Party" of people like Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower, and they definitely are not a good looks for you either, Tennessee.