Dem
51
GOP
49
This story is, quite frankly, frightening. There was, of course, a mass shooting in Tennessee last week. That led, not surprisingly, to mass protests in favor of gun control, including one that took place on the steps of the Tennessee state house. Three Democratic state representatives—Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson—stood on the floor of their chamber with a megaphone, expressing their support for the protesters. The Republican supermajority in the chamber was furious, has already stripped them of their committee assignments, and will soon vote on whether to expel them from the legislature entirely.
Naturally, the Tennessee politicians behind this maneuvering have drawn an equivalency between what the three Democrats did and what happened in Washington on 1/6. This parallel is, quite clearly, absurd. There is no comparison between storming a government building and committing acts of violence in an effort to overturn an election versus exercising one's First Amendment right to engage in protest. The 1/6 folks were breaking the law, which is why a bunch of them have already gone to prison, and a bunch more are headed there. By contrast, nobody is arguing that the three Tennessee Democrats broke the law. Maybe yelling from the floor of the state House chamber is a violation of the rules (although we suspect it happens a fair bit). If so, then there are appropriate sanctions for that, ones that stop well short of expulsion.
Further, even if you grant the equivalency (and again, we don't), none of the members of Congress who participated in the insurrection in any way have yet been sanctioned in any way for their actions on 1/6. Not Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who tried to introduce a fake slate of electors, not Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who egged the insurrectionists on, not Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who may have led tours of the Capitol so the insurrectionists could plan their maneuvers. Maybe if these folks are charged with a crime, and definitely if they are convicted, they will be tossed out of Congress. But until then, they are members in good standing, with the full list of privileges their office confers.
What's really going on in Tennessee, even though we hardly need to spell it out, is that those in power are using that power to silence all dissent. That's not what happens in a democracy, it's what happens in a dictatorship. These folks lament a Xi Jinping or a Kim Jong-Un, and yet they run the same damn playbook. Oh, and if you want to feel extra dismay, one of the three Democrats being targeted is a woman and the other two are Black. Just a coincidence, we are sure. We hope that if the members are expelled (and the prediction in the local media is that they will be), they run in the special election and are returned to their seats by overwhelming majorities. Then, we hope that Tennessee voters punish those responsible, the next time they have an opportunity to do so at the ballot box. (Z)