Ousted Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville), who was removed last week for participating in protests against gun violence, accused the state’s Republican House Speaker of leading a “white supremacist system.”
Jones and fellow Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson (Memphis), both Black men, were voted out by the Republican-controlled state House. A resolution to remove state Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), a white woman, fell short of the two-thirds majority needed.
Al Sharpton asked Jones on MSNBC’s “Politics Nation” what it meant to have a white colleague join the fight.
“We are building a multiracial fusion movement. We’re in the midst of a third Reconstruction here in Tennessee that hopefully will have national implications. But what it means is that this white supremacist system being led by Speaker Cameron Sexton is an attempt to divide and conquer us,” Jones said.
The trio of Tennessee state lawmakers, dubbed “the Tennessee Three,” led protests against gun violence after a mass shooting that killed six at an elementary school in Nashville last month.
“But in reality, you see we, the Tennessee Three, we continue to stand together. Because though their vote was racist, though their vote was to expel the two youngest Black lawmakers, their attack on democracy hurts all of us, whether you’re Black, brown, or white. It is an assault on all of us,” Jones said.
Johnson has also said she believes she alone was saved from removal due to race. “I’m a 60-year-old white woman and they are two young Black men,” she told CNN.
But not all Tennessee Democrats agree. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said Sunday that the expulsion move “certainly has a racist appearance” but argued it was “more of a control issue than racist.”
“I don’t think he’s [Sexton] had a fondness for either of these two young African American legislators who have only been up there a couple of months, probably not for Ms. Johnson either. They are outspoken and they do their job of representing their constituents,” Cohen said.
Jones and Pearson have both said they will run in special elections to reclaim their seats in the statehouse, but could be back to representing their respective districts even as soon as this week if their city councils appoint them on an interim basis.
But Jones on Sunday said he was concerned that Sexton could try to keep him from getting back to the seat he was expelled from.
“Though this council’s voting tomorrow, the Speaker has made signals that he may try and refuse to seat me, so we must remain vigilant. Because it’s not about me, it’s about the 78,000 people in my district who don’t have a representative right now. So I’m serving as a representative in exile, you know, because the people of my district do not have a vote on that House floor right now,” Jones said.
Nashville’s council is set to discuss Jones’ removal on Monday and could vote on an interim representative, while the Shelby County commission chairman is expected to pick a date for an interim vote on Pearson’s vacancy the same day.