Vice President Kamala Harris plans to visit Nashville after the Republicans controlling the state legislature expelled two young Black lawmakers expelled from the General Assembly after protesting for gun reform on the floor of the statehouse.
“Six people, including three children, were killed last week in a school shooting in Nashville,” Harris said in a tweet. “How did Republican lawmakers in Tennessee respond? By expelling their colleagues who stood with Tennesseans and said enough is enough. This is undemocratic and dangerous.”
Reps. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, on a 72-25 vote, and Rep. Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, 69-26, were voted out by Republicans, who also attempted to kick out Rep. Gloria Johnson and failed. Johnson was able to hold onto her seat by just one vote.
According to a White House official, Harris will meet with the state legislature’s Democratic caucus, including Jones, Pearson and Johnson.
“(The vice president) wants to make sure that these young people’s voices are heard,” the White House official said. “In the face of a very tragic event, they want action.”
Jones called his expulsion “a farce of democracy” and compared the vote to “a lynch mob assembled to not lynch me, but our democratic process.”
Speaking to Morning Edition on Friday, Jones accused Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton of having “trafficked in racial rhetoric and racism.”
“This is the consequence of a body that wants to suppress not just our vote, but the votes of our districts that are majority Black and brown,” Jones said. “I represent one of the most diverse districts in Tennessee, and so now those 78,000 people have been silenced.”
Jones’ and Pearson’s districts will hold special elections to fill their newly vacant seats.
