Three Tennessee Democrats were stripped of their committee assignments on Monday and face possible expulsion from the legislature after they joined transgender and gun control activists who stormed the state capitol mere days after a transgender shooter murdered six people at a Nashville Christian school last week.
Reps. Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson face punishment for failing to uphold the General Assembly’s decorum requirements after they were captured on camera on March 30 encouraging a rowdy crowd surrounding the state house floor to scream, jeer, and taunt legislators with chants of “no action, no peace.” The noise continued until leaders on both sides of the political aisle were forced to halt legislative business and clear the galleries.
Corporate media wrote off the tumult as a “peaceful protest.” Footage of the state house invasion, however, shows activists roughhousing the Tennessee Highway Patrol officers that rushed to protect the building and legislators, calling for “no peace,” and even honoring the transgender shooter who was killed by the police officers who responded to the Covenant School shooting scene.
Instead of balking at the coverage slanted against anyone who opposes the radical gun control measures activists touted, Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Republican, called the chaos “an insurrection” and immediately condemned the leftist legislators who aided it.
“They were trying to incite people, they incited people in the balcony to be disorderly and disruptive to shut us down or try to make us adjourn, which I refused to adjourn,” Sexton said. “We finished the people’s work.”
Despite Sexton’s repeated warnings that the inciters could face consequences for their role in the commotion, the Democrats showed no remorse for their actions. Instead, they bragged about their involvement for days following the event and doubled down on their decision to disrupt the lower chamber to “elevate the voices in our community.”
“We weren’t [formally] able to welcome the thousands of people who came to the state capitol asking for change, who were peacefully showing up, singing peacefully, chanting that we might do something,” Pearson said during a press conference. “This is why I, and I believe my colleagues as well, decided that it was time for us to listen to the people.”
Corporate media want to cover for the Democrats by insisting that the mayhem was not an insurrection and that expelling them from the legislature will be unprecedented — but even the most persistent outlets admitted that veteran Democrat legislators were miffed by their colleagues’ role in the fray.
Back in 2019, Jones was temporarily banned from the state capitol after he threw a cup of an unknown liquid that then-House Speaker Glen Casada at a protest against a Confederate statue. His eagerness to egg on disruptive activists in the House chamber proves that he is more than willing to cross boundaries.
Despite pushback from the corporate media, Tennessee Republicans are moving forward with some semblance of accountability for Democrats who have made no promises to refrain from inappropriate actions in the future.
