{"id":132205,"date":"2023-04-10T23:01:18","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T23:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/?p=132205"},"modified":"2023-04-10T23:01:18","modified_gmt":"2023-04-10T23:01:18","slug":"how-tennessee-gop-expelling-2-democrats-could-have-ripple-effect-in-other-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/politics\/how-tennessee-gop-expelling-2-democrats-could-have-ripple-effect-in-other-states\/","title":{"rendered":"How Tennessee GOP expelling 2 Democrats could have ripple effect in other states"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/5Bci60LwAkfgtb57YqC0no8HvDQ=\/1920x1080\/smart\/2023\/04\/07\/1680832953930.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville gestures to supporters during a vote on his expulsion from the legislature at the State Capitol Building on April 6, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee. Photo: Seth Herald\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The Tennessee GOP-led state House&#x27;s expulsion of two Democrats could have a rippling impact in state legislatures across the country, where political parties are entrenched on issues like gun control and abortion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters: <\/strong>Experts warn that majority party lawmakers punishing minority party members with divergent political positions are becoming increasingly common, especially if those members buck up against legislative rules.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Tennessee case could give parties nationwide more of a &quot;green light&quot; to use chamber rules to &quot;deprive citizens of their representation in the statehouse,&quot; Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, told Axios ahead of the vote.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Driving the news: <\/strong>In the first such partisan expulsion in Tennessee&#x27;s modern history, state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were booted from office in a GOP-led vote Thursday, as protesters crowded the state Capitol and other members delivered fiery objections in defense of democracy on the House floor.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An attempt to expel Rep. Gloria Johnson failed by one vote.<\/li>\n<li>The trio \u2014 who some supporters have referred to as &quot;the Tennessee Three&quot; \u2014 interrupted a House floor session last week to protest for stricter gun laws, in the wake of the recent Nashville school shooting that left six people, including three children, dead.<\/li>\n<li>Republicans, who hold a supermajority in the state House, have said thegroup had violated the chamber&#x27;s rules and engaged in disorderly behavior.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Between the lines: <\/strong>The votes Thursday<strong> <\/strong>spurred allegations of racism. Pearson and Jones are both Black. Johnson is white.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The House &quot;expelled the two black men and kept the the white woman! The racism that is on display today! Wow!&quot; state Democratic Sen. London Lamar tweeted.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The effort to oust the three Democrats<\/strong> represents a &quot;dramatic lowering of the threshold for expelling members&quot; and &quot;appears to be retaliation by the legislature for being criticized,&quot; Paulson said. &quot;Imagine if that happens in legislatures across the country.&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>With courts unlikely to intervene in matters explicitly political in nature, such a move could become more common, Paulson said.<\/li>\n<li>&quot;This really is about using the power of the legislature to expel people who have strongly held, strongly differing opinions and happen to be in the minority,&quot; he added.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Worth noting: <\/strong>The expelled members can run again for their old offices. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Tennessee Democratic Party has already begun fundraising to support them in special elections, and they can&#x27;t be expelled a second time for the same reason per the state Constitution, the Tennessean reported.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The big picture: <\/strong>While Republicans have derided former President Trump&#x27;s historic indictment, they&#x27;ve also reprimanded Democratic colleagues in statehouses over political actions, AP reports. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Republican lawmakers in March censured Oklahoma Democratic state Rep. Mauree Turner, the first openly nonbinary lawmaker in the U.S., alleging they impeded a law enforcement investigation when they allowed a protester to take refuge in their office.<\/li>\n<li>In Wisconsin, the state Senate&#x27;s new supermajority has already started talking about impeaching Judge Janet Protasiewicz, whose election this week gave liberals the state Supreme Court majority for the first time in more than a decade.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Two Florida Democrats were arrested and charged this week after refusing to leave a protest against a bill to ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. They are not expected to face legislative discipline, per AP.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Meanwhile in the U.S. House<\/strong>, partisan conflict over removing committee assignments has escalated under the new House GOP majority.<\/p>\n<p><strong>State of play: <\/strong>Expelling members from a legislative body is &quot;extremely rare&quot; and usually happens when someone has been &quot;indicted or convicted of a crime or when there is an extreme ethical violation,&quot; Bruce Oppenheimer, a professor emeritus of political science at Vanderbilt University, told Axios.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Government bodies have the right to set their own rules of conduct and to punish violations, Paulson said, but emphasized that this has only been done before in cases of &quot;gross misconduct and criminal behavior.&quot;<\/li>\n<li>The lawmakers exercised &quot;their free speech rights in a boisterous and arguably disruptive way,&quot; he added, arguing they were being punished for speech that echoed protesters.<\/li>\n<li>Members in question might resign, or for lesser violations be reprimanded or censured. But even these actions would occur after a thorough investigation, Oppenheimer said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What to watch<\/strong>: A key question is whether Thursday&#x27;s outcome will &quot;make it easier&quot; for the majority party in either Congress or a state legislature &quot;to punish members of the minority party who are trying to get some attention to an issue,&quot; per Oppenheimer.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2023\/04\/07\/tennessee-house-lawmakers-expulsion-democrats?utm_source=newsletter\\u0026utm_medium=email\\u0026utm_campaign=sendto_localnewslettertest\\u0026stream=top\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville gestures to supporters during a vote on his expulsion from the legislature at the State Capitol Building on [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":132204,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Tennessee GOP expelling 2 Democrats could have ripple effect in other states - Fin2me<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fin2me.com\/politics\/how-tennessee-gop-expelling-2-democrats-could-have-ripple-effect-in-other-states\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Tennessee GOP expelling 2 Democrats could have ripple effect in other states - Fin2me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Democratic state Rep. 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