Up First from NPR - The Sunday Story: Is this what democracy looks like?

Episode Date: July 7, 2024

This week on The Sunday Story, a new series from NPR's Embedded podcast that explores what happens when one political party has near-complete control. Supermajority, hosted by WPLN reporter Meribah Knight, follows three conservative moms in Tennessee over the course of a year as they learn to navigate their Republican-controlled state legislature. Reeling from a mass shooting at their kids' school, the three moms become advocates for gun control. But this isn't a story about gun control. It's about what they find when they step inside their state capitol for the first time in their adult lives. These political newcomers confront powerful lawmakers, a dizzying legislative process and most importantly – their own long-held beliefs. What can the women accomplish? How will the work change them? And what might it all reveal about democracy?Listen to the full series on the Embedded podcast from NPR.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday Story. Well, another Fourth of July is in the rearview, and this year, of course, it sets the stage for one of the most contentious presidential elections in recent history. But today we want to turn to what's happening on the state level, because that's actually where a lot of stuff gets decided, like laws about guns, abortion, what's taught in schools. One state that was in the news a lot last year was Tennessee. You might remember a big story about two Black state lawmakers who protested at the statehouse and then faced expulsion. That story kind of came and went in the national headlines, but in Tennessee, it turns out it was just the beginning. Things got way more interesting after that. And one reporter, Maribah Knight, with WPLN News in Nashville, followed it all. NPR's Embedded podcast teamed up with Maribah on a new series called Supermajority,

and today we're going to play you the first episode. In Tennessee, the Republican Party controls the House, the Senate, and the governorship, giving them full political power. This new series tells the story of three conservative white mothers who push back against their own party after a deadly school shooting. And a heads up, this episode contains coarse language and discussions of gun violence. Okay, here's Maribah. Sarah Shoup Newman had been avoiding crowds, so she spent much of the week hunkered down at home, an upscale red brick house tucked away in a quiet cul-de-sac right on the edge of Nashville. She'd been trying to comfort her two boys, Noah, five years old, and Judah, who's two.

But her mind was all over the place. I just found myself saying, how did this happen? How did we get here? It was late spring of 2023, and she'd been glued to her phone most nights, watching and reading the news after the boys went to sleep. There had been a mass shooting days before. It was deeply personal to Sarah. The shooting had happened at her son Noah's school, a small private Christian school in

Nashville called the Covenant School. Someone armed with two assault-style rifles and a pistol walked the hallways and unloaded 152 rounds, killing three nine-year-old children and three adults, including the school's headmaster. Noah was okay. His preschool class hadn't met that day. But Sarah was reeling.

I have a hard time even describing what it was like to live that week. I mean, I did not feel like I was in my own body. Like, it just, you feel like you are detached and looking in on someone else's life. She began dashing off notes to herself on her iPhone. I grew up in rural Ohio, where guns were a part of my upbringing, she wrote. I've shot an AR-15. I know its power. My dad used to be a member of the NRA. Then she took to Twitter, calling out her congressman, Republican Andy Ogles. Tell the Covenant community your action plan. My five-year-old is waiting, she wrote to him. No reply. I probably voted for most of these people.

What do they think is going to fix this? Other people were feeling the same way. The state capitol had erupted in protests. More than a thousand people marching, flooding the halls of the Capitol and into the viewing areas, calling for gun control. And then three Democratic lawmakers took to the Republican dominated House floor. You might have heard of them, the so-called Tennessee Three. Seeing on the news, I saw pictures of Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson had, you know, walked up to the well. And one of them was holding a picture that a kid had drawn. One of them had their bullhorn or megaphone.

Our citizens, our constituents are asking us to act today. And we're here passing laws that have nothing to do with the crises at hand. Sarah learned, along with the rest of the world, that these Democrats would face expulsion hearings. That they might actually be kicked out of the legislature for calling for gun control. So why are we only singling out the three people that I saw speak up for the kids that were slaughtered and the teachers slaughtered at my school? It was all so unsettling to Sarah. She'd never heard of anyone getting expelled from the legislature. In fact, it had only happened three times since the Civil War.

I mean, I was really upset, so I wanted to go to the expulsion hearings. At 37 years old, Sarah had never been to her state capitol. She'd never been very politically active. She'd grown up conservative, Republican, and largely still considered herself a Republican. But she decided that she needed to watch in person what was about to happen to these three Democratic lawmakers. I had decided then, like, if they're going to do this, I'm going to wear a Covenant shirt and I'm going to have a Covenant mom sign. But if they're really going to expel these people over this, then they're going to do it knowing somebody from Covenant is watching them

and seeing them do this. That morning, Sarah, who's petite, with big round glasses, dressed in jeans, a red Covenant shirt, and a Covenant baseball hat. And she headed to the Tennessee State Capitol. It was raining, and as she walked up the hill, she said she heard a gun rights supporter yell Nazi at her. These people think I'm their enemy, she thought to herself. She kept walking. Mr. Sergeant of Arms, invite the members into the chamber and close the doors. I hereby declare the House of Representatives of the 113th General Assembly now in session. Sitting in the gallery, she looked down on the House chamber.

As one by one, the three Democratic lawmakers are questioned by the Republicans who want to expel them. Representative Farmer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like Andrew Farmer, who questioned Justin Pearson, a 28-year-old black lawmaker from Memphis. You know, as I'm listening, I'm thinking to myself, you don't understand. You don't truly understand why you're standing there today.

You don't truly understand why I authored that resolution. Pearson stood at the lectern, Ramrod Street, wearing a dashiki under his suit jacket, carefully listening to Farmer. Just because you don't get your way, you can't come to the well, bring your friends, and throw a temper tantrum with an adolescent bull right. The way that they were spoken to was incredibly disrespectful. That's why you're standing there because of that temper tantrum that day for that yearning to have attention. That's what you wanted, but you're getting it now. To see that that's what they will sit on the House floor and say and treat in front of people with media and everyone around that they don't care, like they think that that's acceptable behavior. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were both expelled that day.

Gloria Johnson, the white lawmaker, kept her seat by a single vote. I hereby declare Representative Justin J. Pearson of the 86th Representative District expelled from the House of Representatives of the 103rd General Assembly of the State of Tennessee. Next order, Mr. Clark. Announcements. Announcements. The ousting was all over the news and talk shows. Two House lawmakers expelled. The compelling drama playing out live here on TV. And for more than a brief moment, it caught the attention of the entire nation. This morning, growing outrage after Tennessee's Republican-controlled House voted to...

A Republican supermajority vowing to punish them. Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton even linked their peaceful... One of those lawmakers who's now ousted brought up white supremacy. Gloria, why do you feel like there was a difference in the outcome between you and your colleague? It might have to do with the color of our skin. We're a foundation of who we are, or we preserve. There's never been a more important time for us to be unified. There are 75 of us. We were called, we brought the racism into it. That's State Representative Jason Zachary. A few days after the expulsions and the backlash, a recording of Tennessee's House Republican caucus meeting

was leaked to a local liberal news outlet, the Tennessee Holler. The audio was apparently edited and doesn't capture the voices of everyone in the meeting. We are fighting for the republic of our country right now. We are fighting for the republic of our country right now, Representative Scott Sipicki tells the group. And the world is staring at us. Are we going to stand on our ground? You've got to do what's right. Even if you think it might be wrong, you've got to do what's right.

Sipicki and others in the meeting declined to comment on the audio after it was leaked, but they didn't deny the authenticity of the tape. The Tennessee GOP released a statement saying it had no comment about private conversations. And then, a few months after the expulsions of Pearson and Jones and the leaked audio, an article began to circulate.

It was called, Is Tennessee a Democracy? I sent it to people. People sent it to me. It was by the journalist and historian Anne Applebaum. Anne Applebaum, in your latest article for The Atlantic entitled, Is Tennessee a Democracy? You discuss what happens after one party wins everything, but still wants more. And it created such buzz that she went on cable news to talk about it. One of the effects of having a supermajority, which the Republicans have in Tennessee,

is that they don't really have to listen to anybody. They don't have to listen to the public. They don't have to listen to the Democrats. They don't have to listen to political opponents. Part of why the piece struck me so is because Applebaum has spent her entire career writing about authoritarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe.

And what's happening in Tennessee, she says, it reminds her of those places. And of course, you know, I picked on Tennessee, but there are a number of other states I could have been to where you have almost the same phenomenon. The phenomenon she's talking about are these politically lopsided legislatures, like Tennessee. There are now 29 states, more than ever before,

with legislative supermajorities. Twenty of those are Republican. And to clarify, having a supermajority generally means one party has a steep advantage over the other. In Tennessee, Republicans outnumber Democrats in the legislature, three to one. And as the world witnessed in the spring of 2023, they seemed to be wielding their power mightily. Sarah Shoup Newman didn't know what to make of it. I just felt like they were trying to silence the people speaking out. And I get that there's decorum and there's rules in all of this.

But the attitudes of the legislatures, it just seemed like there was very much this environment of we can say and do what we please. Really just outraged me. Sarah was seeing for the first time how her Republican-dominated state legislature was acting, and she didn't like it. But could a regular citizen like Sarah, someone worried about the future of her party and her state, actually push back? Within weeks of the Covenant shooting,

Sarah would join two other moms who launched themselves into the political arena with such determination and vigor that I couldn't help but take notice. Never before was politics a factor in their lives, but now it seemed to occupy every free moment they had, for better or for worse. So I decided to follow them, these three political newcomers, over the next year, because their presence here surprises me. And in many ways, it surprises them too. Maybe we need to speak out a little bit bolder. Maybe we need to do something to get people's attention. What would they accomplish? How would the work change them? And what might it all reveal about the fragility of our democracy? From NPR's Embedded and WPLN in Nashville, I'm Maribyn Knight, and you're listening to Supermajority. More from Maribyn when we come back to the Sunday story.

Stay with us. Now Our Change will honor 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to Our Change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force two dollar coin today. After Sarah Shoup Newman witnesses the expulsions and sees how they blow up in the national media, part of her is like, well, good. Y'all just exposed how things work here. Maybe this will wake people up,

she thinks. At least people are going to pay attention. At least other people are going to see what I saw and see that this isn't right. Did something shift in you? I think that's when I knew I have to do something. As it happens, there's another mother from the Covenant School who feels the same. A 44-year-old commercial real estate broker named Melissa Alexander. And Sarah took notice. I had seen Melissa start sharing online. She was posting things about her son who was up on the second floor. And she was just being very vocal about it.

So I messaged her. I was just like, I don't know if this is weird, but I'm trying to figure out what to do after this and how to like, how to get change. Melissa, a wisp of a woman with sunny blonde hair and always perfect lip liner, is a Republican, a gun owner, and a staunch defender of the Second Amendment. I always watch CBS mornings. That was my national news station of choice. It hit Melissa on March 28th, the day after the shooting.

And so I turn it on, but I'm watching on my phone because I don't want my children to see the news. And while I was watching the eye opener and the music was playing, images from Covenant started to pop up. And all of a sudden, I see a picture of my family, the three of us hugging. And I paused and I was shocked and the realization came over me that we are now survivors of a mass shooting. We are part of that narrative that I never, ever imagined we would be part of. That's when reality set in and that's when the anger set in. A third Covenant mother, Mary Joyce, a 39-year-old luxury real estate agent, was also angry and traumatized and trying to figure out what to do next.

Her daughter, Monroe, was in third grade at Covenant. She'd survived, but three of her classmates were killed. It was really scary because I've never, I've never spoken out politically. I've always just kind of gone along with, you know, with the family and, oh, we're not Democrats or, oh, you know, we don't believe that. Mary says her family are old school Southern conservatives and that she didn't come from privilege. She was raised by a single mom and money was tight. But Mary knows the expectations of a Southern woman like her.

Her mother is a daughter of the American Revolution. It was drilled into her. We are going to cross our legs and we are not going to be offensive and we are going to be polite and put together. I would wear... This is so embarrassing now. I would wear pearls running on the treadmill. There's that. I'm saying it out loud. Even now, I've rarely seen such a put-together woman. Hair, makeup, eyelashes, all-day heels,

always toting around her Louis Vuitton handbag. Her work bio lists one of her specialties as power mom. And I loved it. I love being from the South. But I understand the rules of the South. Those unspoken, this is your role. And though we're, you know, we're independent, there's still this underlying, hey, just remember who you are. Just remember how things work. But when Sarah and Melissa start a text thread for other parents, Mary joins in.

And on it, she hears about a gun control protest at the Capitol they all plan to go to, called Linking Arms for Change. And Mary decides she needs to go too. We went to the Capitol. A place Mary had never been before, and Melissa hadn't either, not since a third-grade field trip. And there were so many people, and so many organizations, and so many moms and parents and children, and I had no idea that was out there. There was a bunch

of gun control organizations there. Moms Demand Action, March for Our Lives, Safer Tennessee. Local news station WSMV4 Nashville recorded the event. Welcome. Thanks to all of you for joining us here as we link arms for change. And I turn around and I see this line that continues for miles. A three-mile chain of people that snaked from the state capitol to the children's hospital. We must do something for the state of Tennessee, for the sake of our children, for the sake of this city. And I had no idea so many people cared. And that is the moment that I said, OK, we can do this. So I'm in. Like, let's go.

It's on this day, at this event, that Mary, Sarah, and Melissa meet face-to-face for the first time. Afterwards, Sarah texts the group. Could we keep this thread open, she asked. Anybody open to talking about legislative things? Within months, the women start organizing. They announce the launch of a non-profit and an action fund. They start holding press conferences, urging lawmakers to pass stricter gun laws. As mothers, as conservatives, they think, who better to push for change? Good morning. My name is Melissa Alexander.

I am a Covenant School parent and a co-founder of Covenant Families for Brighter Tomorrows and Covenant Families Action Fund. Make no mistake, these women are not the first to try to do this work. Covenant was one of many mass shootings in Tennessee. There was one at a grocery store in 2021, outside a nightclub in 2022, at church twice. And a few years before Covenant, a young man whose guns had been taken away in another state, but who was allowed to have them in Tennessee, had opened fire on a Waffle House, killing four people, all of whom were people of color. The first parent I'd like to invite up is Sarah Shoup Newman. My name is Sarah Shoup Newman.

People have fairly asked me, well, what'd you do after the Waffle House shooting? Nothing is the answer. And that's really disappointing to me that it took this happening at my own child's school to look at what our laws were and see how things have changed. I want to take a moment to say that I see all survivors of gun violence. Your concerns have become my concerns. After the Covenant shooting, Tennessee's Republican governor, Bill Lee, released a video statement. What happened at Covenant School was a tragedy beyond comprehension. Like many of you, I've experienced tragedy in my own life. He'd been touched by the shooting himself.

His wife was close with two of the women who died at Covenant. One was an old co-worker, and the other was the First Lady's best friend. Maria woke up this morning without one of her best friends. In fact, she was due to come to the governor's home for dinner the night she was killed. The women meet with Governor Lee, and they say it's very productive that the governor seemed to be in agreement something must be done. And if that's true, it would mean the governor challenging his own party in an open carry and permitless carry state. First, he floats a red flag law, a way to remove guns from someone who may be at risk of harming themselves or others, which promptly gets the thumbs down from nearly every Republican lawmaker. as a political Hail Mary. He calls the legislature back to the Capitol for a special session later that summer

with the sole focus on public safety and the Second Amendment, a softer way, perhaps, of asking lawmakers to pass some kind of gun control legislation. The women see the special session as their chance to make real change. So they kick into high gear. They have more than 60 meetings with legislators.

The first meeting was a disaster. Mostly Republicans. He wanted us to meet in a bagel shop, and I could tell he was very defensive. Some seem open to gun control measures, like House Majority Leader William Lamberth. We had Senator Briggs pretty early on, and he was wonderful. Most were not in favor, though. Several people told no.

Senator Johnson, it really didn't seem like he cared. Representative Fritz. He didn't try to, you know, he didn't agree with us. He was so kind. I would say that a lot of those meetings were very cordial, very kind. I'd have to look back at our list. There was a whole bunch. I reached out to a couple of the lawmakers Melissa and Sarah mentioned.

Senator Johnson didn't respond. And Representative Fritz didn't dispute the women's recollections. Before all these summer meetings, lawmakers have been receiving strongly worded letters from places like the American Firearms Association, warning them against supporting any gun control legislation. We prosecute backstabbing Republicans in the court of public opinion, they wrote in one letter. But now, here were these women, Republicans, conservatives, constituents, coming at them from their own side. I was a little bit nervous about just being in the public spotlight and so visibly part of this narrative that was about to happen. This is Melissa.

Obviously, there's a sense of anxiety, and everything's come to a head, right? This is everything we've worked for, so here we go. Let's see what happens. After the break, the women head back to the Capitol for the special session they've been prepping for. This is the Sunday Story, and this week you are listening to Embedded's new series, Supermajority. Back to Mariby. On August 21st of 2023, the special session arrives. The women get up early, eat breakfast, and kiss their kids goodbye. Mary Joyce dresses in her red Covenant t-shirt and pulls her shoulder-length hair into a loose ponytail. She grabs her laminated sign, reading Covenant Mom for Firearm Safety, and heads back to the state capitol. On the first day of special session, I had to walk through a crowd of Proud Boys.

Because I have the right to keep fucking talking. I had to walk through them that day, too. These guys in Proud Boy polo shirts, they were shouting at anyone and everyone. So I got four words for you. Fuck around and find out, motherfucker. Come on. That's all I gotta say. I just learned who those guys are. That's different. I mean, I don't know where that happens on a daily basis, but that's different with all their guns and all their weapons and their shouting and their— they look scary, like terrifying.

You need to fucking do something, motherfucker. They're shouting, and they look scary, like terrifying. You need to fucking do something, motherfucker. Mary admits the Proud Boys were never on her radar, but they were now. Like huge weapons, weapons that killed our children and our teachers at our school. Just so flippantly wearing them like it's no big deal. I want you to have a gun too, motherfucker. I want you to have a gun too, motherfucker. I want you to have a gun too. So we can do civil war. So we can do civil war.

But when the women arrive, it isn't only the Proud Boys they have to worry about. At the last minute, House lawmakers close off one of the public galleries because they said they needed more space for lobbyists, legislative staff, and media. That wasn't true. There was plenty of space. The women don't know now if they'll even get a seat, and they wonder, does our own government not want us here? Then Representative Justin Pearson appears. Both he and the other expelled lawmaker, Justin Jones,

have been re-elected by their districts just a couple weeks earlier. Justin Pearson walks in with a group of people, and they're chanting, it was, whose house, our house, whose house, our house. And he starts to walk his people by us, and we're kind of at the front of the line to get in the gallery, and he just grabs us. He says, come up. Okay, go to the back and to level one. He walks them up into the gallery and gives them a seat.

So we were on the front row in this front corner. We're in the corner so you can see direct line of sight to the speaker and you're looking down on most of the House. At that moment, I was like, breathe a sigh of relief. I'm up here. I've made it. Okay, let's go to the next step. Mr. Sergeant of Arms, invite the members into the chamber and close doors. I hereby declare the House representatives of the 113th General Assembly of the state of Tennessee now in extraordinary session. So we're like, OK, just stay quiet, stay poised. Let's keep this consistent, right? They see us. We're front row. Remember all the good conversations we had. Remember us. Mary thought about their summer

meetings with many of these lawmakers, especially ones with the House Majority Leader, William Lamberth, which the women had considered quite productive. Leader Lamberth, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Members, you have had available to you for the last several hours. The women hold up their 8-by-11-inch signs reading Covenant Mom for Firearm Safety, and they watch. Representative Garrett, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm pleased to present the rules from the Rules Committee. Rule number four, bans voice and noise amplification devices, flags, signs, and banners from the galleries. Sarah is thinking, okay, amplification devices, like the bullhorn Jones and Pearson had used when they walked into the well. But signs? Like the one she was holding? Signs weren't explicitly banned in the General Assembly before these women showed up today with theirs. But it seems suspicious to Sarah and the other women. And it turns out the rule was introduced in a meeting

just earlier that morning in House Speaker Cameron Sexton's office. But no public notice was given, which means the public wasn't there. No media. Which, by the way, isn't supposed to happen. There are rules about this. I asked the Speaker's office why they did it the way, isn't supposed to happen. There are rules about this. I asked the Speaker's office why they did it this way,

and they said in an email that the meeting wasn't private. But they didn't acknowledge my question about why public notice wasn't given. Representative Pearson. Thank you. There was an article written by a sponsor called, Is Tennessee a Democracy? He's referring here to Ann Applebaum's piece in The Atlantic. And I believe today we are getting a very clear answer that it is not. This is not how democracies operate. You're saying with these rules

that the folks who want you to know what they think are not deserving of being heard. That's not democracy. Lou Lambert. All right. So lots to unpack there and thank you for your comments.

This is actually a constitutional federal republic. So I know that words democracy and republic get interchanged sometimes, but it is a constitutional federal republic. And I'm just going to make a few comments. What Leader Lambert is saying here is that Representative Pearson is mistaken. The U.S. isn't actually a democracy. Rather, it's a constitutional federal republic. He's basically putting a giant asterisk on the idea that the U.S. is a democracy in the first place, a sort of, well, technically we're not argument. So let's walk through this rhetoric for a moment. In America, we vote for representatives. Think county commissioners,

city council, state house, U.S. Congress, etc. And those folks then vote on our behalf. It's true that the U.S. is not a direct democracy. It's a constitutional federal republic because those elected officials then make decisions on our behalf. The reason why Lambert's word choice matters, though, is that these terms have leapt out of the political science textbooks and into the national discourse. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, published an essay on the topic in 2020. Then, shortly after, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah

tweeted about it. We're not a democracy, he wrote. And then it seemed like it was popping up all over the place, in comments and think pieces. All this to say, there are now people who can't agree on whether the U.S. is a democracy

or not. And that's a big change in how we talk about our country. And so on this first day of the special session, Lamberth uses the term successfully to dismiss Pearson's concerns and get on with the vote. We are voting. Vote aye when the bell rings. Those opposed, vote no. Pearson, no.

Has every member voted? Does any member wish to change their vote? Pearson, no. Why are you so opposed vote no. Pearson, no. Has every member voted? Does any member wish to change their vote? Pearson, no. Why are you so afraid of debate? Pearson, no. Aye, 73, 23 nays. The rules are adopted. With objection, the motion to reconsider is tabled. Next order, Mr. Clerk.

Welcoming and honoring. And I thought, do I put my sign down? What do I do? Again, this is Melissa. Well, at that point we did decide, let's just go along with this. Let's not cause a ruckus. And we put our signs down. But Sarah had this scarf around her neck that had been made after the shooting

that said Covenant Strong, and it had the names of the victims on either end of it. And I said, Sarah, grab your scarf, grab your scarf. And so we draped the scarf over the railing because it's not a sign, it's an article of clothing. And so that was kind of our way to protest the sign rule. And so these rule-following women, they were figuring out just what they were up against and how they might push back. More after the break. The Sunday Story will be right back. Stay with us. The next day, as bills head to committees, Melissa says the women are still very hopeful about getting gun control legislation passed.

I'm still highly motivated. I'm not backing down. I'm not going to forget about what we were trying to do. Mary has work meetings, but Melissa and Sarah use a divide-and-conquer strategy. Melissa tries to buttonhole lawmakers in their offices, and Sarah gets ready to testify at the civil justice subcommittee hearing, where 18 bills are about to be considered. Sarah walks into the hearing room and sits down on the aisle. She's still holding her laminated 8-by-11-inch sign, even though she can't hold it up anymore. She realizes that right in front of her

are the members of the Tennessee Firearms Association, the no-compromise group that's been pressuring lawmakers for months not to take up any of the bills that Sarah's been pushing. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Civil Justice Subcommittee for Tuesday, August 22, 2023. Madam Clerk, call the roll. Representatives Bolso? Here.

The Civil Justice Subcommittee has ten members. Nine of them are Republicans. And the committee chair is a Republican named Lowell Russell. He reminds the gallery of the new rules. Chairman, you have a quorum. named Lowell Russell. He reminds the gallery of the new rules. Chairman, you have a quorum. House rules also disallow the use of signs in committee. Please refrain from displaying signs during the committee hearing. I still see some signs. You can either exit the room or put them up. And I will tell you this, if there's an ongoing problem with these signs, we'll just clear the whole room. Sarah looks around.

Another Covenant mother, who's sitting next to her, begins recording on her cell phone. I'm not leaving. Trooper, the third one back in the center needs to exit the room. The other one holding the sign up needs to exit the room also. Need to exit the room. It's my First Amendment right up needs to exit the room also. Need to exit the room. It's my First Amendment right. If you have to drag me out, so be it. Is this what democracy looks like?

No. I never know. I'm not trying to hurt you. Trooper, the lady back there holding the cell phone, standing up in the blue, needs to leave the room. This is not what democracy looks like. This is not what democracy looks like. Sarah is quietly watching as this gun control activist

holding a small sign is taken out of the room by state troopers. I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm not trying to hurt you. Come with me. Don't touch me, please. The heroes are walking out.

Are our members any personal orders or announcements? About 25 minutes later, there's another burst of noise from the gallery. The chair gets angry. Are we going to quiet down

and listen, or are we going to sit there and clap? All right, troopers, let's go ahead and clear the room. Mr. Chairman, would it be possible to just clear the half that's causing the trouble? I don't know that we can determine the half, so let's just clear the room.

No, this is their third time. Troopers, clear the room. The trooper motions for everyone to leave. Sarah stands up, shaking her head, crying, and walks out of the room, out into the hallway. Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house!

Sarah makes her way through a sea of spectators, all commenting on what just went down. That was autocracy in action. It was not democracy in action. No, it wasn't. But they'll tell you we're a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Ah. Let's split some hairs.

But they just kicked the Covenant parents out of the state house. It's hearing room number one. Sarah finds a seat in the corner, right under a small TV, still streaming the meeting. Then a reporter approaches her, asking her for comment. She's still clutching her sign and some wads of tissue. This is life or death for people. I don't think they understand the courage that it takes to get up here. Eventually, someone comes out, motioning for Sarah to follow. It's time for her

to testify. Yes, that's still happening. Sarah, looking a bit shell-shocked, gathers her things and heads back into the hearing room to testify. Sarah Newman, I think it is. Newman? Miss Newman, if you'll just make sure your red light's on for your microphone. Sarah is here to oppose two bills. One would allow certain teachers to carry a gun on school property, and the other would allow any off-duty, retired law enforcement, or current or former military members to do the same. Say your name and who you're with, and you'll have three minutes.

I'm Sarah Newman. I'm a parent from the Covenant School. Sarah reads a brief statement on behalf of a local teacher on her cell phone, her hands slightly shaking, her jaw clenched. Arming teachers is absolutely the wrong solution to the issue of school safety. Teachers in this state already lack support in terms of funding, poor pay, understaffing, and so many other issues. Forcing them to carry firearms can only worsen the conditions. Sarah is the last of four people, including a representative from the State Department of Safety, to testify against arming people in schools. No one testifies in favor. And yet... Do we have any other questions for this sponsor?

Seeing none, we'll be voting on sending House Bill 7064 to full civil. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The ayes prevail. Full civil. Congratulations. Both bills move on to the next committee.

On the sixth day of the special session, the last day, the women take their seats in the front row of the gallery, and they watch as just three bills out of more than 100 filed are passed. None of the bills, in their eyes, having any material impact on making schools safer from mass shootings. We worked very hard all summer to keep our composure, to see the best in people, to give everybody a chance to hear them out, to hear their opinions.

And it was pretty defeating by the end. In fact, two of the things these bills do, one offering free gun locks to Tennesseans, and the other speeding up the transfer of criminal paperwork between government agencies, are actually already happening in Tennessee. They just hadn't been codified into law. A third bill, having to do with reporting child trafficking statistics, has nothing at all to do with gun control, Which meant that as far as the women are concerned, all of their meetings, their strategy sessions,

at this moment, resulted in nothing. Objection. So, order. Leader Lambert. Leader Cochran. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution No. 150, I move the first extraordinary session of the House of Representatives of the 113th General Assembly of the State of Tennessee adjourned. Signing off.

I hereby declare the first extraordinary session of the House of Representatives. After all the emotional testimonies and the exposure of our story and stories, they gaveled out and said, we're done. This is Mary. I was in shock that nothing, nothing happened. And I remember so clearly walking down the stairs and people are shouting. And we're just trying to get out of there. And we're feeling, it feels so heavy, and it comes on really fast.

And I walk down, and I hear these two gentlemen talking, arguing. Guns and gun deaths. Here's the answer, okay? In 1962, you could buy a gun in the mail without a background check. We had no shootings. It's not the guns, it's the people. There were a lot fewer guns in the 1960s. The people need to fix their minds. People need to fix their minds. It's not the guns fault. I had enough and I could not hold it in. And I remember crying and telling my friends story and not wanting to let them down. And I remember running up the hill on March 27th, trying to get

to my child and not being able to run fast enough and I remember the hours spent in the church waiting to hear if she was alive or dead and I remember the police calling my friend's names over and over again in that church and I knew it's third grade it's our class I know why they're calling them. And I remember seeing my daughter's face the day after the shooting, telling her about all of her friends that had been murdered. And I remember seeing the life go out of her face. Her childhood left her body, and I couldn't hold it in because it is enough. And I didn't give a shit.

And I just started yelling. A handgun will never win against a high capacity rifle. It will never win. It will never win. I will pray for you. I will pray for our communities because we are killing each other. It would never have saved our children at each other. It would never have saved our children. Respect her.

It would never have won. A handgun will never win against an assault rifle. It will never win against a high-capacity rifle. You don't want to listen to me. And that's okay. I've been listening all summer. I've been listening all summer. There is not one piece of legislation.

If you come after my kids, or you come after my friend's kids or you come after a neighbor's kids, I will not stop. And I will scream at the mountaintops and I will find a million other mothers like me or ones that want to prevent it happening to their children. And we will not stop. And we will organize and we we are smart, and we are swift, and we are not going anywhere. And that's the evolution that I have gone through. I want to tell you plainly that this could very well be a story about gun control.

But it's not. It's much more. These women are, for the first time in their lives, lobbying this powerful political majority, which, as you've now seen, can pretty much say and do as it pleases. No need to work across the aisle. No need to compromise. They can write their own rules, stack committees to their liking, pass the legislation they want, and torpedo what they don't want. These women, these political

newcomers, are finding their voices. But will anyone actually listen to them? And what if they come to learn that the stakes are much higher than they'd imagined. During the special session, the women had hastily gotten T-shirts printed, and they began wearing them to the Capitol. They said, get used to seeing these faces. And next time on Supermajority, they make good on that promise. They keep showing up, they strategize, they organize,

and they come back to the Tennessee Capitol. Here we are. Here we again. Back again. I hereby declare the 113th General Assembly of the State of Tennessee now in session. And as the legislature veers away from gun control to issues that have been dominating the nationwide political discourse. You know, banning pride flags, banning books, restricting abortion. Like, look at how many bills he used up for this garbage. The women begin to ask themselves, where the heck have we been?

The more I started seeing all these things that were glaringly unconstitutional, it was just shocking to me. Supermajority from Embedded is a collaboration with WPLN News in Nashville. To hear the rest of this four-part series, find Supermajority in the Embedded feed wherever you listen to podcasts. This episode was produced and sound designed by Dan Gurma, with help from Ariana Lee. Our senior producer is Adelina Lansianese. She and Alex Kotlowitz edited the series. Katie Simon is our supervising editor. Irene Noguchi is the executive

producer for NPR's Enterprise Storytelling Unit. Additional reporting and production help from Nick Nevis, David Goodhertz, and WPLN's Rose Gilbert. Robert Rodriguez mastered the program. Additional research for this series by Nicolette Kahn and Susie Cummings. I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is The Sunday Story. Up first, we'll be back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a good rest of your weekend.