The Tennessee statehouse expelled two Democratic lawmakers demanding tighter gun control laws on Thursday.
The
rarely used measure was invoked by the Republican-controlled
legislature even though less extreme forms of discipline were available.
- The chamber voted 72-25 to expel Justin Jones and 69-26 to remove Justin Pearson for breaking decorum in the statehouse.
- The two young black lawmakers chanted through a megaphone and addressed protestors calling for stricter gun control legislation.
- Gloria
Johnson, a white legislator, joined in the protest but was not expelled
after a vote to have her removed failed to gain enough support.
- The
three lawmakers spoke in support of a large crowd that demonstrated
in the State Capitol four days after three 9-year-old children and three
staff members were killed in a Nashville school shooting.
- U.S. President Joe Biden called the expulsion of the legislators "shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent."
- Jones
said he was the victim of "a lynch mob assembled not to lynch me but
our democratic process," adding that the protest was non-violent.
- Gino
Bulso, a Republican lawmaker who authored one of the expulsion
resolutions, said that Jones "effectively conducted a mutiny," and that
choosing "not to expel him would simply invite him and his colleagues to
continue to engage in mutiny on the House floor."
