With Cnn
His return comes days after the GOP-dominated House expelled him after he and two other Democrats called for gun reform on the chamber floor.
The 36-0 vote to return Jones to his seat followed a vote to suspend a procedural rule that prevents an individual from being nominated and appointed to the seat in the same meeting. Following the decision late in the afternoon, Jones joined demonstrators in a march to the state Capitol.
On Thursday, Jones and Justin Pearson, who are both Black, were forced out of the legislature in a two-thirds majority vote cast by their Republican colleagues after participating in a gun control demonstration on the House floor days prior. Rep. Gloria Johnson, a White woman and Democrat who also participated in the demonstration, survived the vote and held on to her seat in the GOP-dominated chamber.
State law allows local legislative bodies to appoint interim House members to fill the seats of expelled lawmakers until an election is held. Tennessee’s Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton indicated he would not stand in the way of the appointments if the local governing bodies choose to send Jones and Pearson back to the chamber.
“The two governing bodies will make the decision as to who they want to appoint to these seats,” a spokesperson for the speaker’s office told Cnn Monday. “Those two individuals will be seated as representatives as the constitution requires.”
Pearson’s vacant District 86 seat will be addressed during a special meeting of the Shelby County Board of Commissioners in Memphis on Wednesday afternoon, Commission Chairman Mickell Lowery said.
“I believe the expulsion of State Representative Justin Pearson was conducted in a hasty manner without consideration of other corrective action methods,”
Lowery said in a statement.
Protesters planned a day of action that included a rally before the Metro Council meeting before the march to the state Capitol.
The expulsions and expected protest are part of the long-standing debate over the accessibility of guns in America, with this latest standoff spurred by the mass shooting last month at a Nashville Christian school that left six people dead, including three 9-year-old children.
In the wake of that shooting, Jones, Pearson and Johnson took to the state House floor to advocate for gun control, using a bullhorn to address their colleagues and protesters.
Republicans accused the trio of “knowingly and intentionally” bringing “disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives” without being recognized to speak, Cnn affiliate WSMV reported. Republicans then held a party-line vote Thursday to oust Jones and Pearson.
The expelled representatives called the expulsions undemocratic and racist.
“What happened was a travesty of democracy because they expelled the two youngest Black lawmakers, which is no coincidence from the Tennessee Legislature,” Jones said Friday on “Cnn This Morning.” “Because we are outspoken, because we fight for our district.”
Pearson, speaking at an Easter Sunday service at The Church of the River in Memphis, thanked the congregation and community for their support.
“The Republican-led supermajority of the Tennessee General Assembly sought to have a political lynching of three of its members because we spoke out of turn against the status quo of the government, after the tragic deaths of six people in the shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville,”
he said
Attorneys for the ousted representatives – among them former US Attorney General Eric Holder – called their removals “unconstitutional” in a letter Monday to Sexton, saying, “Their partisan expulsion was extraordinary, illegal and without any historical or legal precedent.”
The letter from Holder and attorney Scott J. Crosby – who are representing Jones and Pearson, respectively – urged the House to not “compound its errors by taking any further retributive actions.”
“The world is watching Tennessee,” the letter said.
“Any partisan retributive action, such as the discriminatory treatment of elected officials, or threats or actions to withhold funding for government programs, would constitute further unconstitutional action that would require redress.”
Special election will be held
According to the Tennessee Constitution, since the next general election is more than 12 months away, in November 2024, a special election will be held to fill the seats.
