Tennessee Democratic Rep. Justin Jones called on state House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) to resign hours after the Nashville Metro Council voted to reappoint him to the state House on Monday, with a 36–0 vote.
“Today is an important step forward for democracy, but it’s not the end. They tried to kill democracy last Thursday,” Jones told MSNBC’s Joy Reid Monday night. “We will continue to show up here in the legislature because [Speaker] Cameron Sexton needs to resign.”
Jones’ public reappointment came just days after he and his Democratic colleague, former Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis — both of whom are young, Black men — were expelled by the Republican-led House for participating in a peaceful gun protest from the floor of the chamber. Rep. Gloria Johnson (D), a white woman, also participated in the protest, but survived the vote to expel last week. The protest came in the wake of the Nashville school shooting that left six people — three children and three school personnel — dead.
In a separate interview Monday night, Jones called Sexton “the greatest enemy to our democracy” and renewed his public call for the state House speaker to resign.
“We don’t need a speaker who shuts off microphones, who cuts off members from speaking, who won’t even let us vote if we go join those protesting,” he told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “We have a speaker who represents the opposite of democracy, which is autocracy. And he is not fit to serve in that role.”
Jones added that the Tennessee Republicans are “drunk and arrogant with power.”
“Their attacks may have been successful in the past but this is a new day, a new time in Tennessee. And there is a new movement rising up,” he said.
Pearson, the other Democrat who was expelled, will also have to go through a vote in his respective district, the Shelby County Commission, to be reappointed to his seat.
The vote to reappoint Pearson is scheduled for Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. ET.
Meanwhile, as Jones and Pearson waited for their possible reappointments on Monday morning, their legal teams sent a letter to House Speaker Sexton warning him not to interfere with their possible upcoming reappointments.
“The world is watching Tennessee. Any partisan retributive action, such as the discriminatory treatment of elected officials, or threats or actions to withhold funding for government programs, would constitute further unconstitutional action that would require redress,” the letter read. “Should they be reappointed, we expect that these Representatives will return immediately to full status as members of the Tennessee General Assembly…”
Read the letter here:
I bet Mr. Sexton despises that address he has.
Finn and Snow think so too.
Threatening to cut off funds was a stupid move. Nothing says integrity less than intimidation in public.
‘And tonight I’m gonna party
Like it’s 1959’.
Cameron Sexton
It’s hard to imagine a more predictable outcome from the actions of the Tennessee GOP. The fact that they appear to have not seen this coming is concerning. Corruption is one thing, but this level of political tone deafness among politicians betrays a collective IQ of Tennessee Republicans that can’t possibly exceed room temperature. The fact that these people are running a state government makes me wonder how Tennessee hasn’t gone up in flames by now.
Fair question.
My initial answer would be that society has a lot of inertia. Once things are up and running, many of them will go on by themselves with some reasonably competent person seeing to them on a local level.
The problems are that:
The first of those eventually becomes a problem for the whole society.
The second one is a problem right away for anyone on the short end of the stick, but society as a whole can keep running indefinitely with some people being needlessly hurt.
It’s wrong to let that happen, but society doesn’t stop functioning just because we’re not doing anything about it.