Consider This from NPR - Expelled Tennessee Lawmaker Could Be Back In State House Soon

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

A majority of the Nashville Metro Council supports reappointing former state Representative Justin Jones to the seat he was expelled from last week. Jones was one of two Democrats ousted by the Republican-controlled Tennessee state legislature after taking part in protests calling for stricter gun control in the state.NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Nashville Council Member-At-Large Zulfat Saura about her vote to send Jones back to the State House.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theschmidt.org. Justin Jones is 27, Black, and until last Thursday, represented a district in Nashville in the state legislature. Just two weeks ago, his city was the scene of a mass shooting that left three children and three adults dead. Our community is grieving. There's trauma here. People are calling for action. Jones was one of many who called for stricter gun laws in the aftermath of the Covenant school shooting. We've had the largest protests in Nashville in the past 10 years.

Thousands of people, students, parents, teachers, grandparents, concerned community members here at the Tennessee Capitol. And the speaker refused to let them be heard. He refused to let us even talk about the issue of gun violence on the House floor that week. Anytime we brought it up, our microphones were cut off. We were ruled out of order. And so he and two of his Democratic colleagues, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson, held protests in the well of the House floor. They used a megaphone to lead supporters in the public gallery into chants for gun reform. We had no other choice but to do something out of the ordinary and to try and stand in solidarity with disrupting business as normal, because business as normal was sticking

our head in the sand when our children are dying. The Republican-dominated legislature voted to expel Jones and Pearson, arguing that they broke the rules and intentionally brought, quote, dishonor and disorder to the House of Representatives. Now, Johnson and Pearson are both black. Johnson, meanwhile, is white, and she was not expelled. Republicans in the state legislature defended their votes. Here's Representative Jody Barrett, a member of the state Republican leadership in the House, speaking to NPR last week. I am a member who voted for the expulsion of the two younger gentlemen and did not vote for the expulsion of Ms. Johnson. And it had absolutely nothing to do with race. Barrett and other Republican leaders insisted that the expulsion was about a breach of decorum on the House floor.

Former Representative Justin Jones told NPR he saw the matter quite differently. In reality, we were expelled for obedience to our oath of office to speak for our constituents and to make sure that our dissent and protest is marked for the journal when we see action that is injurious to the people. Now, officials in the Tennessee districts that elected Jones and Pearson get to have their say on what should happen next. Consider this. The Nashville Metro Council is planning to vote soon on what to do with the now vacant seat that Representative Jones was ousted from. As of this recording, the vote had not yet taken place, but a majority of council members had already said that they planned to send Jones right back to the state house. We hear from one of those Nashville council members after the break. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Monday, April 10th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies.

Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. Three Democratic lawmakers in the Tennessee House faced expulsion from the legislature last week. All three had helped lead protests inside the chamber, calling for stricter gun control in the state. Eventually, the Republican-dominated legislature voted to expel two of those lawmakers, but not the third. My colleague Mary Louise Kelly spoke to state representative Jody Barrett, part of the Republican leadership in Nashville, and she asked him to explain why Republicans even felt expulsion was a necessary response to the protests. These three individuals breached a quorum and house

rules, and I think even one of the representatives called it occupied the House of Representatives by taking over the floor of the House during session with a bullhorn and leading the gallery in chants and cheers with a large protesting group outside of the chamber doors as well. And so there was all of the expulsion proceedings that took place yesterday was in response to those actions. To their being out of order is what you're saying. That's correct. Just to push you on that a little bit, your colleague, the House Speaker, Cameron Sexton, also a Republican, I heard him compare the protest to the January 6th insurrection. And I was thinking on January 6th, 2021, thousands of people broke into the U.S.

Capitol, caused a number of deaths, ransacked offices, and tried to overturn a Democratic election. There in Tennessee, we had three lawmakers who you're saying spoke out of turn. Is it comparable, really? Well, I think it's a little bit simplifying things to say that three lawmakers spoke out of turn, taking into account the totality of the circumstances of the day with protesters that were being very loud and agitated. And these three individuals in particular going in and out of the chamber to talk directly to the protesters and gas them up during the day, in the totality of the circumstances, it is comparable or at least can be compared to January 6th in that both efforts were made to... But again, people died on January 6th.

I understand that. But if you boil it down to what actually happened, both incidents were an attempt to interrupt a governmental activity or proceeding. Now, local officials in the districts that had been represented by Justin Jones and Justin Pearson will vote on what happens next with their vacant seats. Mary Louise asked Representative Barrett if he would allow the two expelled lawmakers to retake their seats if that is what their districts decided. I don't know. I mean, as evidenced by my vote, I try to take everything as it comes and make the right decision or do what I think is right based on the evidence that's before me. I will have to think long and

hard about that. As we mentioned, the Nashville Metro Council is planning to vote soon on who fills the seat that Justin Jones was ousted from. The vote had not taken place at the time we recorded this episode. Earlier, I spoke with one of the council members, Councilwoman-at-Large Zulfat Suwara. I asked her if she had already decided on how she would vote. Yes, I have. And I will be voting yes. You'll be voting yes to give Representative Jones his seat back. To reinstate. Yes, please, to send him back.

Let me just ask you, you noted on Twitter that you and Jones, quote, go way back. So do you consider him a friend? Is that fair to say, to characterize it like that? Yes. And actually, he's like a son to me. He calls me his Mama Z. So we've had a relationship for a long time. But my vote is not just about that. My vote is based on all the thousands of emails and calls that we've received from his constituents demanding that we send him back. And so it's about the voices of the voters and why we have to respect that. Okay. So tell us what happens after the Metro Council votes? Like, is the seat automatically filled with the person the council chooses, or is there some sort of special election to let voters ultimately decide who formally should be in that seat?

So it will be both. So what will happen is the council will vote for a temporary person because we don't want our constituents to be without representation for a long time. And so what the council is doing is making sure that we have someone that we hold the seat until the special election can be called. So the vote tonight we're putting back and it will be in that seat. And then once the special election is called, then the voters will have the opportunity to vote back in if they so choose. If I can just go back to last week, when you first heard that Representative Jones and Pearson had been expelled from the legislature, what ran through your mind? I was actually sitting in the gallery. I had been out of town.

I came back that morning, went straight to the state capitol and listened to the hearing and the back and forth. And I was sitting there thinking, you know, at the end of the day, they would not expel them. Like, you know, we know what happened. We know why they protested. We know I see people on the streets. I see mothers crying, students begging for us to do something. And that's what they were trying to do.

So I thought at the end of the day, you know, nothing would happen. And so when the vote actually happened, I was crying. I knew we had the opportunity to possibly put him back, but the fact that it did happen was a fast on democracy. I have an 18-year-old that just voted for the first time, and I'm sitting there thinking, what would these kids be thinking about when a legislature can be voted out just like that, just because they wanted to stand with the people. And especially in a place where we've had other people committed worse things, done worse things, and were not expelled. So it was very disheartening. It was very emotional for a lot of us. It was very upsetting.

And it was really bad. And at the end of the day, it was actually worse when there were three of them, but only the two black were expelled. I wanted to ask you about that piece of all this. Do you think the decision to expel Jones and Pearson but not Johnson, do you think that decision was related to race? I mean, the optics doesn't look good, and that's the only conclusion that can be drawn, because all three of them had the hearing, all three of them had the resolution, all three of them were standing up there. And so whatever compels some people to vote against expelling Gloria Johnson, why did they not use the same to be able to keep the other two? It just doesn't make sense. And so to me and to keep the other two? It just doesn't make sense. And so to me and to everybody looking at it, the optics doesn't look good.

And I mean, they can say something else, but the action shows that two black men were expelled. And it has to be raised. If we can just step back, your city, Nashville, went through the trauma of a mass shooting at a school just two weeks ago. In fact, that was the reason for the protests, calling for stricter gun control measures. And now those protests have given way to this bigger debate about democracy in your state. I mean, you're thinking about your 18-year-old son who just voted. Do you think this whole situation has turned into a distraction from the original issue, guns. I think the hearing and the expulsion was a distraction. I think the people that are protesting have not lost sight of

why they started the protest. At every protest that I've attended, at everything that I've seen, people still keep bringing back the issue of the guns. And so even with the hearing, I remember Jones saying that, look, even if you expel me, we will be back. We're going to still be talking about this. On Friday, there was another protest held in Nashville about guns. And so we have not forgotten. I think they're the one trying to distract, but we are less focused on the reason why we're here and the reason why the protest was held in the first place and what this individual stood for. So I think it's up to all of us to keep reminding ourselves that. And that's the message that I've heard consistently in all the protests

that I've attended and all the conversations that I've been part of. Well, the Republican leadership in the state legislature has staunchly defended its decision to expel Representatives Jones and Pearson. Tell me, what would you like to say personally to those Republican lawmakers at the state capitol now? I would like to say a couple of things. The first thing is that if the council, Nashville City Council and Memphis commissioners, should vote to put these individuals back, I hope that the state would not object. And I hope that they will see to them as soon as possible. That would be the first thing.

The second thing that I would like to say is that they should not and none of us should forget the reason why all this started. It's about the people that died. It's about the protest for good gun laws. So personally, I hope that our state's legislators will enact safe gun laws, common sense gun laws. In Tennessee, we have some of the worst gun laws in the country. In Tennessee, you can't carry without a permit. In Tennessee, you can carry in a park. In Tennessee, you can, we're trying to get a 10-year-old to carry. So what we're saying is red flag laws are good laws. People that have mental issues should not have access to assault rifle.

What we're saying is that we should be able to do background check. And so I'm hoping that at the end of the day, one, that these two black men get their seats back if their people choose to send them back. And then number two, that I hope after all of this, that our state legislators listen to the people, the outcries, the rally, and make sure that we do something about gun control in our state. That was Nashville Councilwoman-at-Large Zulfat Suwara.

It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.