Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Justin Jones, one of the Democratic Tennessee lawmakers expelled from the legislature on Thursday, vowed to attempt to return to his post. <\/p>\n
“This extreme tactic to expel us and try to humiliate us has only put a spotlight of the world on Tennessee, and so I will go back because … it’s worth whatever sacrifice that we have to give, whether it’s being expelled, whether it’s being in a hostile environment,” Jones told CNN Friday morning. <\/p>\n
Tennessee’s Republican-controlled House voted Thursday to expel Jones and fellow lawmaker Justin Pearson, who are both Black, for speaking out of turn during a gun control protest in the House chamber the week prior. Rep. Gloria Johnson, a white lawmaker who also participated in the demonstration, faced an expulsion vote that ultimately failed. <\/p>\n
The expulsion vote came less than two weeks after three 9-year-old children and three adults were fatally shot at an elementary school<\/a> in Nashville.<\/p>\n Jones said he and Pearson don\u2019t see their role as convincing opposing lawmakers of their views, but instead as being a \u201cvoice of moral dissent\u201d and a \u201cspeed bump to try and stop them from driving this train off the cliff.\u201d<\/p>\n More than a dozen members of Nashville\u2019s Metro Council said they plan to vote to reappoint Jones and send him back to the Tennessee House of Representatives, The Tennessean reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n That \u201chostile environment,\u201d Jones added, has been driven by Republicans, including House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who don\u2019t view young Black men such as Jones and Pearson as equal or deserving of being in the Legislature: \u201cWe know what we\u2019re facing.\u201d<\/p>\n In a separate interview on Fox News Friday morning, Sexton defended the expulsion vote and pushed back on accusations that racism was the reason why Jones and Pearson were expelled while Johnson was not \u2014 an allegation Johnson herself made to reporters<\/a> after Thursday’s vote. The speaker said Johnson\u2019s lawyers argued that she acted differently than the pair during the protest \u2014 she didn\u2019t shout or use a bullhorn \u2014 and other members thought she didn\u2019t play as central a role in the demonstration as Jones and Pearson.<\/p>\n \u201cShe is trying to cloak racism in this, which there was nothing on this. They were all given due process,\u201d Sexton told Fox News. \u201cWhat they did was not right, and it deserved expulsion.\u201d<\/p>\n