A week before leading a vote to expel three Democratic legislators for speaking out of order with props for 52 minutes from the Tennessee House floor in support of a citizen protest against the Tennessee Legislature’s failure to act on gun safety, House Speaker Cameron Sexton compared their actions to the January 6 insurrection in Washington:
During an interview on the Hallerin Hilton Hill radio show, Speaker Sexton described the efforts of three House representatives to disrupt the session with a megaphone to ‘incite riots or violence’ as comparable to the siege at the U.S. Capitol.
“Two of the members, Representative Jones and Representative Johnson, have been very vocal about January 6 in Washington D.C., about what that was, and what they did today was equivalent, at least equivalent, maybe worse depending on how you look at it, of doing an insurrection in the capitol” [Tony Garcia, “Speaker Sexton Compares Gun Protest to January 6 ‘Insurrection,’ Draws Backlash,” WSMV–Nashville, 2023.04.04].
Note that Speaker Clemons singled out Representatives Justin Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville, the two black Democrats whom Clemmons and his colleagues expelled last week, and did not include Representative Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, the white Democrat whom the Republican supermajority did not expel.
Democratic Representative John Ray Clemmons of Nashville said Speaker Clemmons’s comparison of this floor protest to the Trumpist insurrection was “baseless & dangerous” lie:
“That is a blatant lie, and it’s offensive. You show me the broken windows. You show me anyone who went into the Speaker’s office and put the chair up on his desk and trashed his office. You show me where a noose was hanging anywhere on the Legislative Plaza…to refer to yesterday as an insurrection is an offense” [Garcia, 2023.04.04].
But I recall my blog reaction to the January 6 insurrection, when I was reminded of Lieutenant Governor and Senate President Matt Michels’s sharp and sudden shutdown of a brewing gallery protest in the South Dakota Senate.
In our democracy (or, for you technical sophists who want to evade the most pressing issue and historical lesson of this day, that Donald Trump loves people who do violence to our Constitutional government, in our republic), our Capitols, state and national, are our most sacred shrines. They shelter and symbolize the most sacred activity of our social contract: the gathering of citizens to establish the rules under which we shall all live and to decide those rules by reason and evidence, not by the violence of the alternative, anarchy. There is room on our Capitols for vigorous argument and protest. The halls and lobbies of our Capitols should always be open for all citizens to come in, find their elected officials, and give them two earsful.
But when we enter the Senate and the House, the actual chambers where our representatives translate our will into the law that shall govern us all, we are in church. We are in a place that must be sacred to every participant in our democracy. We must accept that, for all the freedom the First (emphasize that word in a democracy) Amendment guarantees us to make our arguments in the press, at the crackerbarrels, on the blogs, on the phone, and face to face with our legislators in the lobby, our freedom to enter, not to mention speak, ends at the chamber door. Our laws, our Constitution, our deep commitment to this kind of social contract, demands that we yield that holy governing space to those who have been granted access to it by our legal processes.
When we disagree with the actions our elected representatives are taking, we do not storm our Capitol. We do not vandalize our Capitol. We do not stop the sacred deliberations and actions that take place in our Capitol. If we want to drive our elected representatives from their seats, we do it at the next election, by campaigning and winning by reason and evidence, not by violence.
Our commitment to representative democracy thus demands the highest decorum in the sacred spaces where democracy happens. A breach of that decorum (and the last four years have been rife with breaches of decorum—Donald Trump started inciting today’s insurrection years ago) invites further breaches, bullying, thuggery, and violence like what we saw today in our nation’s Capitol [CAH, “Trumpists Commit Supreme Crime Against Democracy… and I’m Thinking About Matt Michels,” Dakota Free Press, 2021.01.06].
Pearson, Jones, and Johnson did not commit bullying, thuggery, or violence. They did not vandalize the Tennessee House. They did not chase legislators out of the chamber. They did not call for the assassination of any presiding officer.
But Pearson, Jones, and Johnson did break the rules of the Tennessee House. So perhaps we should spot Republicans this marker. Perhaps we should grant them leeway to punish legislators who occupy the floor when they have not obtained the floor through regular rules of order.
Because then we can turn to those Republican legislators and say, “O.K., if you think actions that peacefully disrupted the business of the Tennessee House warrant the (apparently temporary) removal of those disruptive members, then you must agree that the hundreds of people who staged genuine insurrection, who not only disrupted the proceedings of Congress but sought to overthrow the 2020 Presidential election and the Constitution, deserve punishment and that those making excuses for those insurrectionists are menaces to society who should never again hold public office.
Of course, the rhetorical value of taking this position assumes that Republicans are operating according to consistent logic and principles and not Machievellian pursuit of power. Democratic acceptance of punishment for legislators who speak out of order will not likely bring Trumpist Republicans to Jesus or their senses on dealing with the far greater breaches of decorum and law wrought by their impious godhead and his mob. But it’s worth suggesting.
Extremist Talk Radio Show Comes to KELO-LAND RADIO
Unfortunately, this newest right-wing extremism talk radio show (The Joe Pags Show – weeknights on KELO-Radio) is another prime example of the destructive impact of hate speech. The show consistently espouses racist, xenophobic, and bigoted views that have the potential to incite violence and division within our communities. The show’s host often uses cheap tactics to appeal to his audience’s emotions, pitting groups against each other and promoting conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact. This kind of programming does nothing but reinforce harmful and intolerant ideologies, and it is deeply concerning that there are people who continue to listen and be influenced by it.
Frankly, the show’s content has no place in civil discourse, and its perpetuation of hate and prejudice is a blight on our society.
*Better Woke Than Radicalized!
Oh, you have such a sense of irony “…this position assumes that Republicans are operating according to consistent logic and principles and not Machievellian pursuit of power.”
“Expelling a member from the state House is a rarity in Tennessee history, and it has only previously happened three times. In 1866, six lawmakers were expelled for blocking the ratification of the 14th Amendment. In 1980, a House member was expelled for seeking a bribe in exchange for scuttling a piece of legislation. And then in 2016, a representative was expelled amid state and federal investigations for sexual misconduct after a state attorney general report found that he had engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with at least 22 women.”
Previously, Tennessee legislators were not expelled for:
“In 2018, state Rep. David Byrd (R) faced accusations from three women who said he sexually assaulted them while they were minors on a basketball team that he coached. Byrd, who served in the state House ”
In May of 2019, “Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada (R) after text messages emerged that showed the chamber’s top leader encouraged or approved of his chief of staff making disparaging and sexual comments about women, including interns and a lobbyist. . . . In August 2022, federal prosecutors charged Casada with money laundering, wire fraud, bribery and kickbacks concerning federal funds. Prosecutors allege Casada and two others created a political consulting firm, Phoenix Solutions, that was then approved by the House Speaker’s Office as a state vendor. Prosecutors allege the trio created false identities to funnel $52,000 through a state mailer program to their firm. Casada denies the charges. Despite the federal charges, Casada served the remainder of his term, which ended in January, and was not expelled from the legislature.”
In the state that birthed the Klu Klux Klan: “Last month, state Rep. Paul Sherrell (R) asked if the state would consider adding “hanging by a tree” to its list of execution methods.”
“In 2021, state Rep. Justin Lafferty (R) defended the Three-Fifths Compromise on the floor of the state House as “a bitter, bitter pill” that was necessary to end slavery. ”
gift article, paywall: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/08/tennessee-republicans-expelled/
A US history encapsulating our era is, American Midnight: https://www.amazon.com/American-Midnight-Violent-Democracys-Forgotten/dp/0358455464/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3JBV4W70S5PR2&keywords=american+midnight+adam+hochschild&qid=1681138000&sprefix=american+midnight%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-1
No Justins-No Peace!
What’s the punishment for the Republican majority for constricting debate in the Tennessee legislature? The Tennessee Three didn’t just decide to violate decorum rules. The Republican majority first violated free speech and debate to the extent that the minority was not allowed to represent their constituents on legislation or resolutions. The Republican majority used their power to enact rules that effectively silenced the minority completely. I say, “NO!,” and HELL, NO!!”
In the environment of such tyranny, the minority has a duty not only to violate such decorum rules and to non-violently demonstrate if necessary. That’s what they did. That’s what the vast majority of those who showed up in DC to Trump’s Rally did, but then Trump and the crazies took it way beyond a non-violent demonstration. The fact is Jan. 6 was a planned insurrection, while the Tennessee Three engaged in a spontaneous nonviolent response to tyranny. Now should the Tennessee Three face some consequences for their violation of rules? Sure, but it should be proportionate to the violation, and not a tyrannical violation of representative democracy.
You know this was great for the Democratic Party. The same week as a trumping idiot trys to freeze mifepristone in a court in Texas. Wow, this next election is being framed for the Democratic Party. Thank you ever so much speaker Sexton.
All Mammal, that’s one of the pithiest summaries of the situation I’ve heard. Thank you.
As expected, Justin Jones is back in the House after a unanimous vote of the Metro Nashville Council:
Now Representative Jones can get back to work pushing for gun-safety legislation.
But I wonder: if the Republicans in the Tennessee House really believe Jones committed insurrection, how can they in good conscience reseat him?
As usual, Donald does fine work explaining the problem in Republican logic. Sensible people know the protest the Tennessee Three staged was no insurrection. But if we accept the logic that people who disrupt the normal order of business in a legislature should be punished, then we accept that the people who tried to overthrow Congress and assassinate the presiding officers of Congress on January 6 deserve far worse than an expulsion vote.
Having spent six weeks visiting the South, I’d say the protest by the Tennessee legislators was a courageous and timely display of “enough is enough”. Democrats are starting to stand up and fight back against right wing extremism and totalitarian legislation. Today I saw the map of counties in Wisconsin voting for a liberal, pro choice Supreme Court Justice. It was remarkable in the totality of the switch away from Republican humbugery. Republican strongholds like Green Bay, the Fox River Valley, Oshkosh (home of Joe McCarthy, and rural, Catholic southwest Wisconsin rejected a conservative buffoon, for once, and voted Liberal. I hope they like it.