‘DARK, DARK ROOTS’

Why Did These 5 Vote to Boot Black Tennessee Reps but Keep Their White Colleague?

When asked if racial identity had anything to do with his vote, one Republican lawmaker shot back to The Daily Beast, “Absolutely not. The facts are how I decided my vote.”

Republican lawmakers were quick to expel two Black Democrats from the Tennessee House of Representatives Thursday after they protested against gun violence. However, their white colleague, who joined the protest, was narrowly spared, leading many critics to call the decision racially charged.

Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were expelled when 72 lawmakers and 69 lawmakers voted for their ouster, respectively. Those lawmakers argued the March 30 protest for gun control after the mass shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School broke decorum rules, particularly as a bullhorn was used on the House floor to grab attention.

But Rep. Gloria Jones, who was also on the chopping block, received 65 votes, one short of the 66-vote majority needed to oust her.

“I think it’s pretty clear, I’m a 60-year-old white woman, and they are two, young Black men,” Johnson told CNN Thursday night when asked why Jones and Pearson were expelled and she was not.

She added that she could hear alleged racial dog whistling while the men were being questioned by Republican colleagues in the House ahead of the vote.

“I was talked down to as a woman, mansplained to, but it was completely different from the questioning they got,” she said.

She added that there was an unspoken assumption from Republicans rule that signified the men were supposed to “assimilate into this body to ‘be like us.’”

Rep. Charlie Baum was the only Republican who voted against expelling all three, Newsweek reported.

On Friday, The Daily Beast contacted the five members who voted to keep Johnson but expel Jones and Pearson—Reps. Mike Sparks, Jody Barrett, Rush Bricken, Sam Whitson, and Lowell Russell—for an explanation of their decision.

Three of the five failed to respond.

“The three representatives violated our House Rules,” Bricken said. “They disrupted our legislative process and brought the House to a stop, unable to do the people's business of legislation for almost an hour. …They knew what they were doing. They wanted to incite chao[s] and get their notoriety. The two who were expelled are professed political activists.”

Bricken claimed racial bias was not a factor in his vote, adding that he was upset about Johnson’s remarks regarding an alleged bias toward skin color.

“How shameful a statement, that’s the kind of statement that fuels hate and more disruption,” he said. “I voted no on [Johnson’s] expulsion simpl[y] because I thought her actions on March 30th didn’t justify expulsion compared to the other two. I hope I was right.”

“We can’t let anarchy take over our governmental processes,” Bricken concluded.

In a prepared statement, Russell wrote, “All three violated House rules and each of their individual conduct was not acceptable. It was obvious in the video recording [of the protest] and during discussion that Gloria Johnson did not participate in the extent that Jones and Pearson did. The two used that bullhorn to shout and scream and incite the crowd… Had all three participated the same, I would have voted to expel all three.”

When asked if racial identity had anything to do with his vote, Russell told The Daily Beast, “Absolutely not. The facts are how I decided my vote.”

However, the Tennessee Three, as they’ve come to be known, as well as Black lawmakers in the state are not convinced by that explanation.

“What you’re trying to say to us, since you’re putting us on trial,” Jones said Thursday ahead of his expulsion. “What you’re putting on trial is the state of Tennessee. What you’re really showing for the world, holding up a mirror to a state that is going back to some dark, dark roots. A state in which the Ku Klux Klan was founded is now attempting another power grab by silencing the two youngest Black representatives—and one of the only Democratic women—in this body. That’s what it’s about. Let us be real today.”

Over 100 Black lawmakers from the Congressional Black Caucus, a collective that represents Black members in Congress, gathered almost immediately after the vote for an emergency online meeting to strategize on reinstating Jones and Pearson, The Washington Post reported.

“It smacks of overt racism that the two individuals that were ultimately expelled are two Black men who were simply speaking on behalf of their constituents,” U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), the Caucus’ chairman, told The Post. “Make no mistake about it: Those two representatives will be returned to their positions.”

Indeed, a majority of members of the Nashville Metropolitan Council, which is responsible for appointing the interim lawmaker to replace Jones until a special election, told NBC News they’d be voting to send Jones back to the state Capitol as soon as Monday.

“We’re going to keep fighting for our communities because the status quo is not working,” Pearson told reporters after his expulsion. “It’s hurting people, it’s killing people, and they’re treating things like this as normal.”

“We can never normalize the ending of democracy. We can never normalize the tyranny in the way these people in positions of power operated due to white supremacy and due to the maintenance of patriarchy,” he added. “That’s what we’re up against, and we’re going to fight it because we believe there is a future we can live in too that is better than the present we currently have.”

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Brooke Leigh HowardRace and Identity Reporter

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