CNN
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The second of two Democratic lawmakers expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives could soon return to the chamber, as officials in Memphis on Wednesday weigh whether to appoint him as an interim representative.
Shelby County commissioners are expected to vote Wednesday on appointing Justin J. Pearson to the House District 86 seat, which the 28-year-old vacated last week when he was forced out in a two-thirds majority vote by the GOP-dominated body after he and two Democratic colleagues participated in a demonstration calling for gun reform on the chamber floor.
“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,” Pearson said at an Easter Sunday service at The Church of the River in Memphis.
Pearson and Rep. Justin Jones, who are both Black, were expelled, though Jones was reinstated as an interim member and returned to the state House victorious Monday, following a unanimous vote by the Nashville Metropolitan Council. Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is White and participated in the demonstration on the floor of the House, survived the vote last week and kept her seat.
Tennessee law allows local legislative bodies to appoint interim House members to fill the seats of expelled lawmakers until an election is held, and the vote to appoint Pearson is expected to follow a similar process to Jones’ earlier this week.
With a rally in support of Pearson unfolding about a mile away at the National Civil Rights Museum, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners will meet at 1:30 p.m. to take up the matter of Pearson’s vacant seat.
If his nomination passes with a simple majority, the council will need a two-thirds vote to suspend a rule that requires a cooling off period before a final confirmation vote.
If that vote passes, Pearson could return to the House as soon as Thursday, when he and a certified copy of the minutes from the council meeting are expected to arrive in Nashville, where lawmakers will be in session at 9 a.m.
In a statement over the weekend, Shelby County Commission Chairman Mickell Lowery said he believed Pearson’s expulsion “was conducted in a hasty manner without consideration of other corrective action methods.”
“I am certain that the leaders in the State Capitol understand the importance of this action on behalf of the affected citizens here in Shelby County, Tennessee and that we stand ready to work in concert with them to assist with only positive outcomes going forward,” Lowery’s statement said.
The lawmakers’ expulsions came as the long-simmering debate over guns in America boiled over in Tennessee following a mass shooting last month at a Nashville Christian school that left six people dead, including three 9-year-old children.
Jones, Pearson and Johnson took to the state House floor to advocate for gun control, using a bullhorn to address their colleagues and demonstrators who had gathered at the Capitol.
Republicans accused the trio of “knowingly and intentionally” bringing “disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives” without being recognized to speak, and they filed three resolutions seeking their ousters. The vote to remove Jones and Pearson happened last Thursday – a move the expelled representatives called undemocratic and racist.
On Monday, Jones and his supporters marched the four blocks from City Hall to the Capitol after a resounding 36-0 vote by Nashville councilmembers, reinstating him as an interim representative for House District 52.
“Today we are sending a resounding message that democracy will not be killed in the comfort of silence,” Jones said. “Today we send a clear message to Speaker (of the House) Cameron Sexton that the people will not allow his crimes against democracy to happen without challenge.”
“To anyone who has doubted the South, anyone who’s doubted the power of Tennesseans to advocate for an end to gun violence, anybody who’s doubted the movement to end assault weapons – anybody who’s doubted the movement, here’s your answer: The movement still lives,” Pearson said Monday as he stood on the steps of the Capitol alongside Jones.
Sexton earlier indicated he would not stand in the way of the appointments should local officials 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 on Monday. “Those two individuals will be seated as representatives as the constitution requires.”
Upon his return – and in the wake of not only the mass shooting in Nashville, but another Monday at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky – Jones indicated he would continue to call for gun reform legislation.
The Louisville shooting is a “painful moment of recognition that our legislators and people like Cameron Sexton and the Republican party in Tennessee and across the South in this country are not doing nearly enough to prevent guns from getting in the hands of people and doing all of the holistic work of gun prevention that is necessary in places across our communities,” Pearson told CNN.
