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“If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Yesterday, those of us in North Carolina saw our General Assembly devolve into an actual super-majority with the switch of party by Rep Tricia Cotham from the Democrats to the Republicans which now gives them the ability to override Governor Cooper’s veto at will.

To be fair, this is not as much of a change in how the NC House works in practice of late now that the custom of members “pairing off” to cover absences has gone by the wayside but whenever any political party has managed to so entrench themselves in power by hyperpartisan gerrymandering of the electoral maps so they don’t even have to listen to their opponents and can ram any sort of legislation through the General Assembly they wish, it’s often never a good thing for the people of the state.

I just didn’t imagine that barely 24 hours after Rep Cotham’s switching of party affiliation that we would see that play out in stark terms with our neighbours to the immediate west in Tennessee.

Both sides of the Tennessee General Assembly are likewise ruled by a Republican super-majority and today they are considering expelling three members from the House for breaching the House’s rules of decorum by going to the well without leave from the Speaker and engaging in a protest against gun violence involving using a megaphone and occasionally smacking the top of the podium.

The three members were Rep Justin Jones (TN 52 – Nashville), Rep Gloria Johnson (TN 90 – Knoxville), and Rep Justin Pearson (TN 86 – Memphis). The Justins are the two youngest black members of the House and Johnson is a 60 year-old former special education school teacher.

You only had to listen to Speaker Cameron Sexton on the national news outlets last night to know exactly how he intended the expulsion resolutions to go when he not only compared the actions of these members to the storming of the Capitol on January 6th, he actually said that their actions were even worse.

That’s in spite of the fact that their protest involved no violence or weapons of any sort.

But wait! It gets even better!

Right before the House is due to consider HR65 which is the one concerning the expulsion of Rep Jones, Rep Garrett (TN 45-Goodlettsville) drops a bombshell on the proceedings by moving to suspend the rules of the house in order to show a seven minute video showing the incident in question prior to the first member essentially being put on trial.

This in spite of no notice of the existence of the video or who filmed it and/or edited it to the leadership of either party nor any indication as to the authenticity and admissibility or even relevance of the footage. Apparently, it’s against the House rules to film or livestream the proceedings of the House (except for the official cameras) so it wasn’t particularly surprising that the member(s) who shot the film didn’t step forward to claim responsibility and risk being the subject of an expulsion resolution themselves for a seemingly more serious breach of the rules of decorum than what the three members were being accused of.

Points of order were made that it was grossly unfair to the members facing expulsion for their “jury” to essentially be shown potentially prejudicial footage that even their own attorneys haven’t seen and that the members have been refused access to so that they’d be seeing it at the same time everyone else is and having to formulate some sort of defence during their 20 minute statement on-the-fly.

One particularly cogent objection noted that showing the film could only have one purpose…to inflame the anger and passions that members were feeling that day which may well had cooled in the subsequent week and to ensure minds that were likely already made up prior to hearing any testimony from the accused stayed that way. It didn’t matter that the video was superfluous when everyone in the chamber that was acting as the jury had witnessed the events in question with their own eyes.

It should come as no surprise that no amount of trying to reason with the majority dissuaded them or Speaker Sexton from quickly steamrolling their objections and moving on show the video in question. What’s really noteworthy is that Speaker Sexton doesn’t even acknowledge the last set of objections but instead lets another member move the question and then takes two votes on the matter in less than two minutes.

For a CSPAN junkie who is used to the tortuously long votes in the US House that often exceed the 15 minute time limit by orders of magnitude (though admittedly it is a much larger body of 435 members compared to the Tennessee House which weighs in at 99 members), this still seems shockingly fast to go through the procedural steps of recognising a member, accepting the motion and a proper second, announcing the vote, ringing a bell, canvassing the members if they’ve voted and/or want to change their vote, and finally having the Clerk report the tally. *TWICE!*

And all that whilst noting that there were still objections on the floor but this would be just the first of many instances of poor if not outright tyrannical behaviour by the Republican super-majority during this session.

The video is ordered and it starts rolling and it’s already clear that the first few seconds of the video is edited from non-official footage by an organisation billing itself as “TN Holler”, ironically enough a progressive podcast. Additional cuts through the video are clearly from members on the floor as opposed to the cameras mounted well above the floor of the House that are the usual views on the official footage.

What’s really important is that the first ten seconds of the footage shows the three members walking toward the well as Speaker Sexton yells and gavels at them that they’re “out of order” at least once before calling for a “five minute recess” at the five second mark and demanding that the leadership attend him at his chair.

Crucially, the megaphone does not come out until after the recess is ordered (not that Rep Jones really needed it…very good diaphragm technique projecting his voice and clearly this wasn’t his first time addressing a protest!). So whilst one could argue that its presence was a breach of the rules, it’s not used until the House has already been recessed (and indeed most of the non-decorous behaviour they’re accused of does not happen until the House is in recess and thus the rules of the House do not apply).

So really all that video shows is three members walking toward the well with Rep Jones shouting and getting gavelled out of order before an immediate recess.

That’s it.

I’ve seen far, far worse behaviour during Questions for the Prime Minister in the UK House of Commons. Anyone who has watched Question Time for the first time has probably wondered how in the world anyone can hear anyone else in that chamber with all of the yelling, hooting, and catcalling if not outright insults flying both ways across the despatch boxes. And this hooliganism that makes the spectacle seem much like the throwing of the Christians to the lions is a regular *FEATURE* of the Commons despite every Speaker begging the chamber to be decorous and courteous to one another.

The three resolutions would be brought up in reverse order starting with HR65 (expulsion of Rep Jones), HR64 (expulsion of Rep Johnson), and HR63 (expulsion of Rep Pearson). I won’t bore you with a full play-by-play of the next six hours but the general gist was that the accused was given 20 minutes to make their defence in the well before being questioned by members who were either belligerent, hostile, and outright condescending or supportive of the member before the resolution was moved and the member would be granted a five minute closing before a vote that seemed to be pre-ordained as to it’s outcome.

To say that watching the kangaroo court in action live and in living colour was fascinating was a grand understatement.

There were many poignant moments during the next six hours but the one critical admonition came from Rep Johnson’s attorney as he was pointing out the many false statements in HR64 seeking to expel her:

Democracy is too precious for a super-majority to abuse it.

Think about that statement very carefully.

The Tennessee House has been the scene of and witness to behaviour far worse than walking to the well without leave and trying to shed light to the tragedy of gun violence that had occurred just a week prior in Nashville and the lack of will or courage amongst the Republican super-majority to do anything other than offer their “thoughts and prayers” and then cash the NRA bribes so that they continue to do nothing. Oh, sorry…I meant to say “NRA campaign contributions”.

Some of the past behaviours in the House that apparently didn’t warrant expulsion included:

• Attempted verbal and physical intimidation of a member in an elevator (apparently two days earlier between Rep Bulso (TN 61) and Rep Jones).
• One member urinating on the seat of another member in the House chamber.
• Former member David Byrd (TN 71) who was accused of child sexual abuse of three women when he was a high school basketball coach, one of whom he apologised to in a recorded conversation remained in the chamber for four years with Rep Johnson trying unsuccessfully to have him expelled.
• Current and former members including Speaker Sexton’s predecessor in the Speaker’s chair investigated and indicted for fraud and corruption.

These resolutions were clear retaliation against the three members for not minding their place and resisting being silenced by the super-majority. From the outside looking in, the behaviour directed toward the “Tennessee Three” might well run afoul of the Workplace Discrimination Policy signed by Speaker Sexton on 12 Dec 2019 in terms of ticking the boxes of workplace discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation. They may well have not used the procedure specified in that document for their grievances but that doesn’t mean they weren’t victims of the behaviours therein.

There were some other bits during the proceedings that caught my ear (in no particular order):

• It seems patently clear that Rep Garrett (TN 45) is a lawyer by training if not temperament. The nature of his questioning and seemingly slavish devotion to the rules and process as if it were some sort of suicide pact rather than giving in to common sense and what justice requires were all too evident in his interrogation of Rep Jones. He doesn’t come off as a villain character per se but several times during his pedantic questioning over minutae had me thinking “lighten up, Johnny!”
• Rep Bulso (TN 61) does rather come off as a villain when he takes his opening shot against Rep Jones by comparing their actions to a mutiny and trying to equate their actions to the January 6th insurrection. But even amongst his overblown accusations, he accidentally hit upon a truth that apparently scares him…that if the expulsion is successful and Rep Jones is sent back to the House afterward, he cannot be expelled a second time for the same offence. If Bulso’s assertion that Rep Jones *WANTS* to be expelled for that reason so that when he is inevitably sent back by his constituents in Nashville, that’d indicate some Jedi-level strategy on the part of Rep “Obi Wan” Jones.
• Rep Jones hits Bulso’s rambling statement that was supposed to be a question for six when he points out the glaring lack of a question and then really sends Bulso’s accusation of Jones having a lack of remorse for calling Speaker Sexton a liar flying over the boundary rope with this observation: “I didn’t hear a question but while my colleague’s statement was eloquent, what he was essentially saying was Justin was an uppity Negro. How dare he point at the Speaker and call a lie a lie. How dare he treat…act like he’s your equal. How dare he come before this body and not bow down. That’s what Rep Bulso was telling me and what he told me on the elevator two days ago when he tried to incite violence against me and got in my face and said that ‘you are a damned disgrace’.” That’s what they call in the business an ouchie right in the gentleman’s sausage!
• Rep Mitchell (TN 50) points out that setting the precedent of expelling members of very minor rules violations would be a very bad idea. He mentions high-ranking members from the other side apparently coming to his desk and threatening bodily harm and he didn’t call for them to be expelled. Nor did he like looking down the chamber and seeing a former Speaker that deserved a jail cell and there wasn’t a “felony he didn’t see that he didn’t want to break”. And yet not a peep for expulsion. “But we’re going to throw a young man out today who had the audacity to fight for what he believes in.”
• Rep Kumar (TN 66) really goes for tone-deaf right off the hop when he accuses Rep Jones of viewing everything through the “lens of race, those are your experiences and that is perfectly understandable” but then spends the next couple of minutes preaching assimilation and just going along to get along before going off on a big tangent of personal grievance.
• Apparently the statement that Rep Kumar found offensive was Rep Jones telling him that he was “putting a brown face on white supremacy” by noting he was the only non-white Republican in the House. If that’s what Rep Jones said, I can understand why Rep Kumar would be royally pissed off at him as that was completely out of order and inappropriate regardless of the circumstances and I would think Rep Jones would owe him a sincere apology.
• Rep Bulso comes back for another bite of the villain’s apple in his interrogation of Rep Johnson during her expulsion hearing and he really goes for the nit-picking pedantry combined with breathtaking condescension. He badgers her with essentially the same question over and over again and Rep Johnson shows incredible patience that clearly shows her experience as a teacher trying to educate a particularly dullard student. She finally gets a bit annoyed when he asks her the reason she and her colleagues brought a megaphone to the well and is right in asking him “is this resolution about my colleagues or is this about me?” That’s when he doubles down on the “I’m going to be a condescending wanker to this woman” with his nasty statement with a bit of a sneer: “did you have difficulty understanding the question?” A less patient person would have crudely suggested Rep Bulso engage in sexual congress with himself and likely highlighted his amazing likeness to a several foot tall ambulatory anus but Rep Johnson handles it masterfully with her measured reply of “oh, I understand *PRETTY WELL!*” with that dripping disdain teachers save for especially stupid students who should be propping up the dunce cap on their head whilst seated on the stool in the corner.
• Just when Rep Bulso seems to have plumbed the depths of ineptitude, he then asks her if she’s the one that brought the mini-megaphone into the chamber which apparently was the subject of many rumours floating about the chamber. She then takes great delight on leading him on a very painful journey involving her friend’s full-sized megaphone with detached microphone outside the building and being stored in the seat of her scooter in the presence of and with the permission of State Troopers on the grounds who asked her not to get it out of the scooter for the rest of the day. “So, so much for the gossip!” and she gets cheers from the gallery.
• Rep Bulso tries one last shot insinuating she’d engage in the same behaviour again but Rep Johnson hits that for six as well when she tells him that she really doesn’t like him trying to read her mind (quite poorly and incorrectly) and that if the chamber could normally operate in such a way that everyone can speak without being summarily and capriciously cut off by the chair, it likely would never happen again because it wouldn’t need to echoing the sentiment that this is not how things usually happen and the only reason everyone is getting to speak is that the news media is filling the gallery. Rep Bulso finally takes the hint and gives up!
• Oh, dear, I spoke too soon. Here’s Rep Bulso now going on about grace and contrition and how she’s not worthy of grace and forgiveness and now he’s in some sort of fantasy land where he accuses Rep Johnson of not answering his repeated questions. The three members behind him are wondering what in the world he’s talking about. Rep Johnson does the most diplomatic job of calling him and his resolution a pack of lies and suggesting he did a really poor job of writing individual resolutions when his intent was to punish all three collectively. I can only imagine she was one heck of a teacher when she was in the classroom…her patience in the face of badgering the witness was epic.
• The surprise of the day is that Rep Johnson survives her expulsion vote by one vote leaving Rep Pearson as the tie-breaking expulsion resolution.
• I would think Rep Pearson truly scares the Republicans in the chamber as his 20 minute defence and responses to the questioning but especially his closing once it was clear he was going to be expelled was like attending one of those rocking and rolling evangelical churches. In the South, that’s known as a “come to Jesus” moment!
• Rep Bulso’s questioning (well, badgering!) of Rep Johnson was reprehensible enough but I’ve come to the opinion that Rep Farmer’s (TN 17 – Sevierville) amazingly condescending “I don’t think you understand why you’re down there today” that was followed up with this bit of nastiness: “but just because you don’t get your way, you can’t come to the well and bring your friends and throw a temper tantrum with an adolescent bullhorn” really gives him strong consideration for Villain of the Day.
• The gruesome hits just keep coming out of Rep Farmer’s mouth with a diva-like finger pointing thing: “what you could do, you could maybe file a piece of legislation that maybe would do that instead of sitting back and criticizing folks that have worked really hard for the past decade to do so. That might be a place to start. But certainly don’t start by commandeering the well while we’re conducting business here in this Tennessee General Assembly. That’s why you’re standing there. Because of that temper tantrum that day. For that yearning to have attention, that’s what you wanted. Well, you’re getting it now.” Wow.
• But of course, he’s not done: “if you want to conduct business in this house, file a bill. Be recognized, stand there and present it and pass it. All you have to do is pass a bill.” I’d love Rep Farmer to answer this question: in a chamber ruled by a super-majority that completely opposes Rep Pearson’s party and any policies they might have, that apparently kills bills in committee by fiat of the chair often by voice vote and then choosing the opposite of what the actual voice vote was, and severely curtails if not outright silences members of his party when the media aren’t lining the galleries…just how in the world is Rep Pearson or anyone in his caucus supposed to do that? Especially with a Republican Party bought and paid for by the NRA? So the choice Rep Farmer is really offering seems to be “either play the game with the deck completely stacked against you by the super-majority’s rules or sit down and shut up”.
• Rep Pearson is polite, soft spoken, and definitely to the point. “Now. You all heard that. How many of you would want to be spoken to that way? How many of you would want to be spoken to in that way? We’re not talking about politics or even talking about gun violence, how many of you would want to be spoken to that way? The reason that I believe the sponsor of this legislation, this resolution, spoke that way is because he’s comfortable doing it. Because there’s a decorum that allows it. There’s a decorum that allows you to belittle people. We didn’t belittle nobody. What we said was that we can not be beholden to gun lobbyists, to the NRA. We can’t be beholden to organizations that don’t want to see us make progress on gun violence, we can’t be beholden to folks who don’t want to see us save our kids and protect them.”
• Rep Pearson then tees off on Rep Farmer’s term “temper tantrum” and asks if the protests they’re seeing outside the chamber is a temper tantrum. Or the woman who lost her son to gun violence is a temper tantrum. “Is elevating our voices for justice or change a temper tantrum?” And this is the point his voice starts rising as he warms to his subject and I’m reminded of Morgan Freeman playing “Batman” Joe Clark addressing his students of Eastside High in Paterson NJ. If they ever remake that movie, I know who they need to call to play the role of Joe Clark.
• Rep Pearson’s closing framing Good Friday to Easter Sunday…”Sunday always comes!”. That kid has quite a future in politics.
• The final vote sees him expelled on the party-line vote.

I will say I was surprised that all three of the Representatives weren’t booted from the House. But maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised that Rep Johnson was spared expulsion as she noted in questions to the media afterward that the colour of her skin probably had something to do with it.

Whether it was overt and obvious hostility and racial animus or the more subtle and cunning sort, there was very definitely much more going on here than members merely being upset at being inconvenienced by three members walking to the well to bring attention to an issue only two weeks removed from a mass shooting in Nashville that had made national news.

One would have had to been blind in one eye and couldn’t see out of the other to not see what was going down during that long session.

But here’s the thing…in striking down the two young black members and sparing the white schoolteacher, the Republicans have managed to make all three of them far more powerful than they were before. Far more powerful in the court of public opinion than the Rep Bulso’s and Rep Farmer’s would have ever dared dream possible.

There will come a point in time when legislators throughout this land will cease to fear the NRA and it’s massive corps of lobbyists and will fear being rejected at the ballot box more than they fear losing all of the money the NRA and it’s cronies stuff into their pockets.

And the face of the people who are going to be bringing about were on centre stage of this deplorable and anti-democratic flexing of a super-majority doing what it wanted to do rather than the right thing. The honourable thing.

It may well take another generation or two, another 50-100 years but eventually the stranglehold on legislators that is preventing meaningful and positive change will be broken and destroyed forever.

I have no doubts that Rep Jones and Rep Pearson will be sent back to the House of Representatives soon enough. I hope that every last member who tried to take them down realises they really only made them much stronger and much more formidable an opponent who will eventually win because they’ve got youth and vigour on their side and the old ways cannot last forever.

“You can’t win, Darth!”

Indeed! 🙂