[ad_1]
One of two black Democrats ousted from the Republican-led Tennessee House will return to the Legislature after a Memphis commission voted to reinstate him Wednesday, nearly a week after his ouster for supporting gun control protesters thrust him into the national spotlight.
The Shelby County Board of Commissioners voted 7-0 to reinstate Justin Pearson as state representative.
“I will continue to fight with and for our people, whether in or out of office. We and our young protesters are the future of the new Tennessee. Those who seek to silence us will not have the last word,” Pearson wrote in a op-ed published in The New York Times.
Republicans blasted Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones last week over their role in gun control protests on the House floor after the Nashville school shooting that left three children and three adults dead.
The Nashville Metropolitan Council took just a few minutes Monday to restore Jones to office. He quickly returned to his seat.
Supporters outside the Tennessee state House said last week’s expulsion of Democratic representative Justin Jones was ‘egregious’ and ‘unconstitutional’ and cheered as it was announced again.
The appointment is interim and a special election for the seat will be held in the coming months. Both Jones and Pearson said they would run in the special election.
The House vote to remove Pearson and Jones but keep white Rep. Gloria Johnson drew accusations of racism. Johnson survived by one vote. Republican leadership denied that race was a factor, however.
Last Friday’s expulsions make Tennessee a new front in the fight for the future of American democracy. Within days, the two had raised thousands of campaign dollars, and the Tennessee Democratic Party received new support from across the US.
Political tensions rose when Pearson, Johnson and Jones on the House floor joined hundreds of protesters who gathered at the Capitol last month to demand gun control measures.
As protesters filled the gallery, lawmakers approached the front of the House chamber honking their horns and joining in the chants. The scene opens the day after the shooting at Covenant School, a private Christian school. Participation from the front of the chamber violates the DPR rules because the three do not have the permission of the DPR speaker.
Support for Pearson has come from all over the country, including Memphis. During a rally Monday in support of Tire Nichols, who died in January after he was beaten by police while in custody, Pearson supporters said the commission was “on the clock.”
“You have one project – to restore Justin Pearson,” said activist LJ Abraham.
Before Wednesday’s election, Pearson led hundreds of people in a march from the National Civil Rights Museum to the county commission office in downtown Memphis.
Pearson grew up in the House district they were elected to represent after longtime state Rep. Barbara Cooper, a black Democrat, died in office. It winds along the neighborhoods, forests and wetlands south of Memphis, through the downtown area and into northern Shelby County.
Before being elected, Pearson helped lead a successful campaign against a planned oil pipeline that would run through neighborhoods and wetlands, and near wells that pump water from the Memphis Sand Aquifer, which supplies drinking water to 1 million people.
He quickly gained a reputation as a skilled community activist and excellent public speaker.
Political divisions run deep in the Legislature
If Pearson joins Jones in returning to the Tennessee Capitol, he will do so at a time when political divisions between some of the state’s Democratic strongholds and the Republican supermajority have reached a boiling point before the ouster.
GOP members this year introduced a wave of punitive proposals to strip Nashville of its autonomy. Others have pushed to eliminate some of the state’s community oversight boards that investigate police misconduct and replace them with advisory panels that would be blocked from investigating complaints.
Lawmakers are also approaching a bill that would shift control of the board that oversees Nashville’s airport from local appointments to selection by Republican state government leaders.
Especially when it comes to addressing gun violence, Republicans have so far refused to consider enacting new restrictions on firearms in the wake of the Nashville school shooting. However, lawmakers have advanced legislation designed to add armed guards to public and private schools and are considering a proposal that would allow teachers to carry guns.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Cameron Sexton’s office confirmed this week that Republican lawmakers have been stripped of their duties in the top committee for more than a month after he asked during a hearing that “hanging by a tree” could be added to the country’s execution method. The speaker’s office declined to specify the reason for removing him from the committee.
Rep. Paul Sherrell was removed from the Criminal Justice Committee and transferred to another, and “very favorable” to the change, said spokesman Sexton Doug Kufner.
Sherrell, who is white, later apologized for what he said amid an outcry from Black lawmakers, who pointed to the country’s dark history of lynching. Sherrell said the comments were “exaggerated” to show “the support of families who often wait decades for justice.”
[ad_2]
Source link