The Tennessee Republican Party waited less than 24 hours to start fundraising off the expulsion of two progressive lawmakers from the state House—openly bragging Friday about what critics have called a blatantly anti-democratic move that shows the party’s growing authoritarianism.

State Reps. Justin Jones (D-52) and Justin Pearson (D-86) are two of three Democrats who joined protesters in interrupting a floor session on March 30 to demand gun control in the wake of last week’s deadly school shooting in Nashville. Tennessee House Republicans on Thursday voted to expel both Black men from the chamber while a vote to expel their colleague Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-13), who is white, fell short.

In a Friday fundraising email, the Tennessee GOP said: “Their adolescence and immature behavior brought dishonor to the Tennessee General Assembly as they admitted to knowingly breaking the rules. Actions have consequences, and we applaud House Republicans for having the conviction to protect the rules, the laws, and the prestige of the State of Tennessee.”

“Our fight is just beginning,” the email concludes.

Progressives members of Congress had already denounced Tennessee Republicans for engaging in what U.S. Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) called “straight-up fascism in its ugliest, most racist form” before the fundraising email emerged.

Now, the Tennessee GOP is portraying the state’s first partisan expulsion since the Civil War era as upholding “the rule of law” and is trying to capitalize on it.

Slate‘s Alexander Sammon warned that Thursday’s vote “is a chilling portent of the future of Republican governance and the state of democracy nationwide.”

“While Republicans have focused on gerrymandering and voter suppression as the primary prongs of their assault on democracy (as well as the occasional insurrection attempt),” he noted, “the willingness to expel democratically elected Democrats for minor-verging-on-made-up infractions portends a terrifying new development.”

In a Friday statementPublic Citizen president Robert Weissman condemned Tennessee House Republicans for “summarily ending” the current terms of Jones and Pearson and “depriving their constituents of duly elected representation.”

“This was a racist and disproportionate act of retaliation against legislators who had joined demonstrators chanting in the chamber, in protest of Republican refusal to adopt commonsense gun control measures in the wake of the March 27 school shooting in Nashville,” said Weissman, who called Tennessee Republicans’ move “flagrantly anti-democratic.”

“American democracy is in a profound crisis… What just happened in Tennessee is yet another reminder of the perilous state of our country.”

“In modern American history, expulsion of state legislators is very rare—not just in Tennessee but throughout the United States, and rightfully so. Legislators should expel elected officials only in extreme circumstances, not over policy differences or impingements on decorum,” he continued. “Legislative supermajorities already have enormous power; when they wield that power to strip away even the offices of the minority, they are treading on very dangerous ground.”

As Weissman pointed out, “Some Tennessee legislators—and a lot of MAGA commentary online—are un-ironically calling the state representatives’ chanting an ‘insurrection.'”

“Of course, the United States did witness a real insurrection on January 6, 2021,” said Weissman. “Not one member of Congress was expelled for promoting [former President] Donald Trump’s patently false claims that the 2020 election was ‘stolen’ from him or for supporting the attempted coup carried out at Trump’s behest. Only 10 Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives would vote to impeach Trump in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection, and only two of them were able to get re-elected.”

“American democracy is in a profound crisis, riven by lies, right-wing extremism, conspiratorial thinking, and subservience to corporate and special interests, and racism,” Weissman stressed. “What just happened in Tennessee is yet another reminder of the perilous state of our country.”

Nevertheless, he continued, “a hopeful future is also a visible feature of our nation, demonstrated in the courage and principle of the targeted representatives… and the energy and commitment of the protesters—overwhelmingly young people—demanding justice and commonsense gun regulation.”

“This is a powerful reminder that democracy does not die easily,” Weissman added. “Indeed, the energy in Tennessee will help inspire and power the nationwide movement not just to defend but to expand and deepen our democracy, and we are committed to rising to the occasion, and being part of this movement to make our country a more just and equitable place for all.”

Piece reproduced in full from Common Dreams under a Creative Commons 3.0 license

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4 COMMENTS

  1. I think it’s time for President Biden to make the GOP’s biggest nightmare a hard blast of reality and declare martial law and ban the Republican Party and arrange for all GOP legislators (state and national) and governors and justices/judges to be declared “enemies of the state.” Then, shut down Fox “News” and all right-wing media (print and online).

    And the only way any of the politicians get released is to pass a basic high-school level civics test with a score of at least an 85. Anyone who doesn’t pass the test can take a retest but their passing score keeps going up with every failure (from 85 to 87 then 90 then 92, etc, until they have to pass with 100). I’m kind of thinking most of our biggest problems would be in custody until they die.

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    • In case it needs to be noted, the above comment was largely done with tongue firmly planted in cheek. OUR side would never go that extreme, no matter how justified it might be.

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  2. It seems to me that repugs have shifted their efforts. While gerrymandering and voter suppression helped them for a while, their hideous stands on things actually important to Americans (like abortion rights, healthcare, equality, jobs, quality of life) have undermined them in elections. Now it seems they are attacking/co-opting Dem individuals directly. Witness this Tennessee debacle of taking out two young Dem reps. But before that we had Sinema being wooed/bought to leave the Dem party. And there’s another one, I don’t recall her name, who has decided to turn coat and become a repug. How much did they pay her for her soul? How many other borderline Dems (think Joe Manchin) can they corrupt/purchase? It only takes a few to give the Senate back to repugs. Witness the subjugation of the Supreme Court with Citizen’s United, probably funded by the likes of Harlan Crow and his ilk, buying Thomas, for one, that we know of. The decades of loading the court with right-wing idealogues, McConnell subverting the nomination process to give tRump three cucks. We are under assault on all fronts by these traitors, they aren’t messing around, and we and our country will be the losers if they get away with their treachery. I’ve said elsewhere we are experiencing a slow civil war with the steady trickle of mass murdering going on across the country. But I think it may also be more of a silent civil war as these right-wing @holes continue their steady destruction of our checks and balances, our form of government, our social structures, trying to return us to something that more resembles the bad old south.

    I’ve always held the notion that the 21st century represented a time of enlightenment, advancement of the human condition, of scientific and social discovery. I can’t believe what it has turned out to be due to the selfishness, greed, and power lust of a few.

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