The Republican supermajority in the Tennessee House of Representatives voted to expel two Black Democrats, Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville, on Thursday, April 6, for speaking out of turn during a gun-safety protest a week earlier.

Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), who participated in that protest on the House floor, survived an expulsion vote.

The vote against Pearson was 69-26, with three Republicans voting not to expel him, including state Rep. John Gillespie (R-Memphis). Shelby County Reps. Tom Leatherwood, Kevin Vaughan and Mark White voted to expel him.

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“We will never quit,” Pearson said to conclude a speech.

Pearson objected to Republicans saying they were being disciplined just for breaking rules of decorum.

“It was not the fact that we came up to the well,” Pearson said, referring to the area around the podium on the House floor. “It was what we were up here talking about.”

Pearson was expelled barely a week after he was sworn in; his official swearing-in ceremony was March 27, the same day as The Covenant School shooting. He had not been assigned to any committees.

“You don’t truly understand why you’re standing there today,” said state Rep. Andrew Farmer (R-Sevierville), who sponsored the resolution to expel Pearson. “That’s why you’re standing there — because of that temper tantrum that day.”

“How many of you would want to be spoken to that way?” Pearson rhetorically asked House members. “He called a peaceful protest a tempter tantrum.”

As the majority voted to expel them, protesters in the gallery overlooking the chamber — who had been nearly silent, holding signs and waving their hands — chanted “fascist” at the Republicans, and Pearson raised his fist.

After protesters shouted during the House’s April 3 session, House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) ordered state troopers to remove them from the gallery.

From the House floor, protesters could be heard chanting in the lobby outside.

The vote against Johnson was 65-30, failing by one vote. Expulsion resolutions need votes by two-thirds of members to succeed.

Jones, who was in his first term in the General Assembly, said his expulsion was “nothing less than authoritarianism.”

“Your overreaction, your flexing of false power, has awakened a generation of people who will let you know that your time is up,” he said during a speech before the vote. “Speaker Sexton is not a king. Speaker Sexton is not God, though he may want to be.”

The vote to expel Jones was partisan with the exception of one Republican, state Rep. Charlie Baum (R-Murfreesboro), who voted no. Rep. Sam Whitson (R-Franklin) did not vote.

Tom Leatherwood, Kevin Vaughan and Mark White — Republican House members from Shelby County — voted to expel Johnson. John Gillespie (R-Memphis) was present, not voting. Seven Republican representatives voted to keep her in office. The case against her was perceived as being less strong, in part because she did not use the megaphone.

No Republicans publicly disagreed with Sexton’s push to expel the three Democratic legislators in the days leading up to the vote. The Democrats are considering First Amendment lawsuits against House leadership.

State Rep. Johnny Garrett (R-Goodlettsville) said their protest “silenced 7 million people,” referring to the number of Tennessee residents who Garrett said were silenced by the “people’s business” being interrupted. 

Democrats said the expulsion process was unfair and that they were “ambushed.”

The expulsions are not permanent.

The former members could be elected again or reappointed to their seats by their county commissions; several Metro Nashville Council members said they intend to reappoint Jones.

A week of protests

Gun-safety activists have flooded the State Capitol for more than a week, demanding red-flag and safe-storage laws, a ban on assault rifles and more since the March 27 mass shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville.

Last week, the three Democrats went to the podium on the House floor without permission during a pause between discussion of two bills, and led protesters in the gallery in chants of “no justice, no peace.” Pearson and Jones used a megaphone.

Sexton threatened disciplinary action immediately, equating their conduct to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He stopped their ID badges from granting them access to legislative buildings and stripped them of their committee assignments.

On Monday, Gov. Bill Lee unveiled a school safety proposal that included no restrictions on guns, lawmakers filed resolutions to remove the three Democrats and the story became national news.

Jones went viral on Twitter after publishing a video showing state Rep. Justin Lafferty (R-Knoxville) shoving him and taking his phone as he was recording a video of protesters; that led to a heated physical confrontation between lawmakers. Lafferty was not disciplined.

The family of the late Rep. Jim Coley (R-Bartlett) wrote on Facebook that Coley “would be so disappointed” in House Republicans, saying the family “stands with our fellow Tennesseans for change.”

In an April 3 letter to House members, Pearson wrote, “If this House decides to expel me … then do as you feel you must.”

“I recognize that I did not follow decorum this past Thursday on the House floor, and I take full responsibility and accountability for my actions,” Pearson wrote.

“When I saw thousands of people — mostly children and teenagers — protesting and demanding action from us after the slaying of six innocent people, including three 9-year-old children, it was impossible to sit idly by and continue with business as usual. … It was untenable to hear the chants, pleas and cries of thousands of peaceful children outside our chambers and do nothing — say nothing.”

Who are Pearson, Jones and Johnson?

“The Justins,” as they’re known at the capitol, are both racial justice activists.

Pearson is the leader of Memphis Community Against Pollution (the P at first stood for “the Pipeline”), which stopped a proposed oil pipeline through Black neighborhoods in Memphis. Environmentalists warned the pipeline would spill into the aquifer and disproportionately harm Black people.

“Your overreaction, your flexing of false power, has awakened a generation of people who will let you know that your time is up. Speaker Sexton is not a king. Speaker Sexton is not God, though he may want to be.”

Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville)

Pearson won a special primary election in January, replacing the late state Rep. Barbara Cooper. He wore a black Dashiki during his initial swearing-in ceremony in February; Republicans criticized him, saying he should show more respect, even though Sexton allowed him to wear it on the House floor.

Jones, who represents part of Nashville, was in his first term as a state representative. He was a prominent voice in the People’s Plaza movement in 2020.

After the police killing of George Floyd, Jones and a group of racial justice activists camped in the plaza next to the capitol for weeks; many of them were repeatedly arrested. Their protests prompted a law making it a felony to camp on state property.

Johnson has been one of Tennessee’s most prominent progressive voices for several years.

She represents a Knoxville district that Republicans see as one of the clearest paths to expanding their majority. She has served two stints in the House, the first from 2013 to 2015, the second since 2018.

Johnson was a teacher for decades. She worked at one of the high schools closest to Columbine in the school year after the April 1999 mass shooting; she said she taught students who could not return to Columbine High School.

In 2021, she voted against Sexton for speaker. He responded by not assigning her a standard office; instead, she got a small conference room, while her assistant — who had cancer — had to work in a closet. A standard office across the hall was vacant. He assigned her to a full office last year.

Partisan punishment

Johnson, Jones and Pearson were the first House members to be expelled since Rep. Jeremy Durham (R-Franklin), who was accused of sexual misconduct against 22 women.

The House expelled Durham by a bipartisan 70-2 vote in 2016.

Opponents of Sexton’s decision to seek their expulsion note that Republicans have declined to punish other members of their party whose conduct is more unethical than speaking out of turn.

One example is the former state Rep. David Byrd (R-Waynesboro), who was accused of child sexual abuse in 2018 by three women who played on the high school basketball team he coached in the 1980s. One of those women recorded him apologizing to her years later.

Johnson unsuccessfully sponsored a resolution to expel Byrd in 2019. Former House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) called on him to resign, but he did not. Byrd did not run for reelection last fall.

Democrats also point to Republicans’ refusal to discipline Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald).

Hensley, it was reported in 2017, had an affair with and unethically prescribed opioids to his second cousin, who worked as a nurse in his medical practice. Republican leadership took no action, but the state Board of Medical Examiners placed his medical license on a three-year probation in 2020.

“We had a child molester on the floor for years — they helped him get re-elected and did nothing to expel him,” Johnson said Monday. “We’ve had members pee in each other’s chairs. We’ve had members illegally prescribe drugs to their cousin-mistress, and nothing happened. But talk on the floor without permission, and you get expelled.”

Katrina Robinson, the former state senator from Memphis who was found guilty on wire fraud charges, was the last state lawmaker to be expelled. Prosecutors initially charged her with hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraud, but she was eventually convicted on two counts of fraud totaling $3,484.

The Senate voted on a partisan basis to remove Robinson in a decision she described as a “procedural lynching.”

Jones, echoing Robinson earlier this week, described it as a “political lynching.”

“I’m not here today to plead mercy,” he said on April 3. “This is a political lynching, but we will not back down.”