Tennessee GOP statehouse leaders just can’t stop embarrassing themselves. When the legislative session opened, they resorted to heavy-handed methods to silence Democratic members during floor debates and limit access to the chamber floor for the press and House gallery for the general public.
Last year the GOP-led Tennessee House managed to turn two young Black Democratic state representatives, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, into national figures after they led a protest on the House floor to demand stronger gun safety legislation. Their protest followed the March 2023 shooting at The Covenant School, a private Christian grade school in Nashville, that killed three adults and three children.
The two men, who came to be known as The Justins were expelled from the House in April 2023 for what House GOP leaders called a breach of decorum. Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton even called their peaceful protest “at least equivalent” to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Johnson and Pearson were subsequently reinstated by their local governments and then overwhelmingly won special elections last August.
A third Democratic representative, Gloria Johnson, who is white, survived expulsion by a single vote. She is now favored to win the Democratic nomination to run for the U.S. Senate against incumbent GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn.
Republican House leaders, again claiming to be acting in the interest of preserving “decorum,” were set to impose new rules for limiting access to the state House gallery as the chamber began its new session.
GOP lawmakers were expected to approve the new rules on Wednesday, after the House Rules Committee endorsed them on Monday—and they did.
MSNBC reported that while the House voted to approve these new restrictions, the Rules Committee voted down a proposal from Jones to bar lawmakers from carrying guns in committee rooms. Guns are banned from the state Capitol building, but the committee rooms are located in a separate office building.
Progressive news site The Tennessee Holler posted a video clip of Jones speaking to reporters after his proposal was voted down.
Jones said allowing guns into committee rooms is “an issue of safety.”
“During special session, some members of the Proud Boys were here in the Legislature, and if we’re sitting in the committee room, and people are sitting in front of you with a gun, that doesn’t make anyone feel safe,” he said.
Watch:
Meanwhile, MSNBC reported that the rules committee “voted to maintain strict rules of decorum that include stringent punishment for members deemed out of order by the House speaker, shorter time limits on debate, and the prohibition of visual aids, props or signs in the House chamber or committee rooms.” Those rules were first enacted in a special legislative session last August to discuss “public safety” and were used to silence Jones once more during a debate back then. But the special session adjourned without passing any new gun laws.
The Tennessean described more details on the restrictions on debate in the House:
Under the new rules, presentations on House bills will be limited on both the floor and in committee to just five minutes — despite multiple attempts by Democrats on Monday to extend presentation limits to 10 minutes or 15 minutes.
Members who are ruled by the House Speaker to be out of order, if confirmed by a vote of the body, can be temporarily silenced for up to two legislative days, on a third offense.
And right on cue, during Wednesday’s debate on the new House rules, Jones ran afoul of the rules and was silenced when he accused House Speaker Sexton of being “drunk with power.”
Watch:
Soon after this exchange, the House voted 70-19 to adopt stricter rules about supposed decorum, as the Tennessee Lookout reported Wednesday afternoon.
The new rules give a lawmaker two strikes for being out of order or going off-topic before the House could vote to ban the member from speaking for two legislative days.
In addition, speakers will be limited to five minutes to introduce or debate a bill, and points of order and parliamentary inquiries have to be registered with the House parliamentarian who would give an immediate answer instead of being debated openly.
The rules also allow the House speaker, in talks with caucus leaders, to determine which bills could be debated for up to 60 minutes, giving each party 30 minutes to talk and allowing caucus leaders to decide who speaks. Under previous rules, each lawmaker could speak for five minutes on each bill, enabling Democrats to keep debate going for up to two hours.
[…]
While Democrats argued against the new rules, saying they would limit debate, Majority Leader Lamberth contended they would “expand debate.”
But wait, there’s more! House GOP leaders imposed new restrictions on allowing the general public to view its legislative sessions by introducing a last-minute ticketing requirement to sit in a public Capitol gallery. That caught members of the public by surprise when they showed up Tuesday for the start of the 2024 legislative session.
The Tennessean wrote:
State troopers and House Sergeants at Arms turned spectators away from the west House gallery ahead of the start of session on Tuesday, citing a new policy requiring tickets issued by lawmakers that was never publicly announced. Under the policy, as best understood by members of the public, lawmakers, and those enforcing it, lawmakers were allowed to give out a single spectator ticket to sit in the House gallery.
The rule, established by House Speaker Cameron Sexton. R-Crossville, effectively slashes public access to House proceedings by half.
[…]
The policy is one of several apparent crowd-control measures enacted after the intense protests of last spring, with an increased trooper presence still present in the Capitol. Members of the public and lobbyists, many of whom were also vocally upset by the new gallery policy, are now sequestered within a warren of stanchions in the Capitol rotunda and wide hallway outside the Senate and House chambers. The area was entirely open to the public a year ago.
The newspaper reported that it was unclear when Cameron adopted the new policy because many lawmakers—including some Republican leaders—“seemed unaware of its origin.” The Tennessean added that it was also unclear whether the ticketing policy had to be first approved by the House Rules Committee and ultimately be voted on by the full House.
Last spring, after The Covenant School shooting, the gallery was packed with gun safety advocates who made their presence heard during the session that led to the expulsion of the two Justins.
Jones responded to the new policy by leading a protest outside the House chamber on Tuesday.
Watch:
And in another heavy-handed move, the House GOP leadership refused floor access to certain reporters who are not included in “a binder full of ‘approved’ media,” said AP reporter Kimberlee Kruesi, the chair of the Tennessee Capitol Press Corps in a post on X.
Among the journalists barred from access to the House floor was Adam Friedman, a reporter for the Tennessee Lookout, a watchdog news site.
Former Tennessee journalist Brett Kelman, who is currently a reporter for the independent KFF News, posted this on X about the Tennessee Lookout’s exclusion from the House floor:
“I am disappointed but not surprised. The Lookout does some of the best accountability journalism in the state, and if I was one of these politicians, I would be terrified of them too.”
Meanwhile, young gun control advocates have not given up on their efforts to make their voices heard. On Tuesday before lawmakers entered the chambers, five Tennessee elementary school students made a plea for them to pass legislation that would protect children from gun violence.
Campaign Action
