两名民主党议员被共和党控制的田纳西州众议院驱逐，其中一人被允许留在该州现代史上第一次党派驱逐。
这三名议员——被驱逐的州众议员贾斯汀·琼斯(Justin Jones)和贾斯汀·j·皮尔森(Justin J. Pearson)以及众议员格洛丽亚·约翰逊(Gloria Johnson)——周四分别面临驱逐听证会，因为他们涉嫌违反商会的礼仪规则，参加了上周在州议会大厦举行的枪支管制抗议活动。
在抗议过程中，三人组一度站在众议院大厅的井边，用扩音器高喊口号。示威游行是在1960年之后发生的致命的圣约人学校枪击事件警方称，3月27日在纳什维尔，一名前学生枪杀了三名儿童和三名成人。
几天后，田纳西州共和党众议员巴德·赫尔西、吉诺·布尔索和安德鲁·法默发起驱逐决议认为这三名民主党议员“确实通过他们的个人和集体行动故意给众议院带来混乱和耻辱。”
琼斯是众议院议员周四投票通过HR65时被驱逐的第一位议员，他称该决议是“一个奇观”和“一群暴民聚集在一起，不是对我动私刑，而是对我们的民主进程动私刑。”
琼斯在20分钟的开场陈述中说:“我们呼吁你们所有人禁止攻击性武器，而你们却以攻击民主作为回应。”
在驱逐决议通过后，琼斯说，他的被驱逐开创了一个“先例，任何表达异议或反对意见的成员都可以被驱逐出立法机构。”
“今天对美国来说是非常危险的一天，”投票结束后，他在走廊上接受采访时说。
皮尔逊演唱了《人民的力量》，并在开场白中引用了《圣经》，他称罢免他的决议是“对第一修正案的不公正”。
“代表最后的、失去的、最少的、那些被遗忘的、那些被忽视的、那些被沉默但拒绝再沉默的人说话，他们不应该被驱逐出这个房子，”他在周四晚上被驱逐出会议厅之前说。
在她的听证会上，约翰逊，唯一一位在驱逐决议中幸存的立法者，否认了她在上周的示威游行中从井里“大喊”的指控。但她坚持说，她加入了抗议活动，违反了众议院的礼仪，是为了挑起“好麻烦”。
“我在学校的朋友都叫我‘法律与秩序小姐’,因为我是一个遵守规则的人，我知道规则有时必须被打破，有时你必须惹上大麻烦，”她说。
“我可能违反了一条规则，但这份文件中的话是假的，我做了我被迫做的事情，因为我所在地区的选民恳求我提出这个问题，”她后来补充道，指着HR64，这可能会将她驱逐出立法机构。
投票结束后，共和党发言人卡梅伦·塞克斯顿指控三人组他说他个人投票支持驱逐所有三名民主党成员。
“我认为你今天在众议院听到的是，那些成员在众议院发言时，夺走了这个会议厅的声音45分钟，导致抗议活动，扰乱了我们正在进行的业务，”他在接受新闻国家采访时说。"我要说的是，行动是有后果的."
提出驱逐决议的三名共和党议员哈尔茜、布尔索和法默没有立即回应美国广播公司新闻的置评请求。
周四早些时候，立法院通过了HB322该法案要求学校实施一系列安全计划和安全系统，包括要求学校保安锁门和主动射击训练，这一法案遭到了三名面临开除的成员的反对。
琼斯说:“这项法案不是关于学校安全的，”他补充说，“让我们的学校成为军事化区域”的举动是出于拒绝“解决真正的问题，即容易获得军用武器。”
约翰逊曾是一名教师，他谴责“在我们学校门口发生枪战”的可能性，而皮尔森则认为“我们每个人都必须解决的根本原因是枪支暴力流行病。”
皮尔森补充说:“我们不需要一个说如果你不锁门或让某人带枪的解决方案，我们需要一个说人们不应该去学校、住宅和拥有战争武器的社区的解决方案。”
美国总统乔·拜登(Joe Biden)在一份声明中表示，驱逐议员的举动“令人震惊，不民主，没有先例”，他认为田纳西州的共和党人专注于惩罚“与学生和家庭团结一致，帮助提高他们的声音”的议员，而不是推动枪支管制改革。
“这个国家建立在和平抗议的基础上。前总统巴拉克·奥巴马周四晚上在推特上说:“任何当选官员都不应该仅仅因为提高自己的声音而丢掉工作——尤其是当他们是代表我们的孩子这么做的时候。”。“田纳西州发生的事情是文明和民主规范更广泛侵蚀的最新例子。压制与我们意见不同的人是软弱的表现，而不是强大的表现，也不会带来进步。”
自内战以来，田纳西州议会只投了两次票开除成员。
但驱逐三名田纳西州议员的努力是州立法机构最近采取的几项行动之一惩罚背景代表不足的立法者在进步事业上表明立场。
例如，俄克拉何马州共和党人将该州唯一的非二元立法委员从众议院委员会中除名，原因是这位立法者为一名跨性别权利活动家提供了庇护。
截至周四，这三名民主党议员表示，他们已经失去了进入州议会大厦的身份，并被剥夺了任何委员会的任务。
但是皮尔森和琼斯在听到他们的驱逐投票结果时，在民主党议员的陪同下，表示他们仍然不会为他们的选民而战。
“我们将继续为纳什维尔和孟菲斯、整个田纳西州和整个美利坚合众国渴望正义的人们而战。我们应得的。这是我们生来就有的权利。我们的遗产不仅仅是一些纸片、宪法和规则，”皮尔森在被开除后的一次走廊采访中说。“倡导和抗议正义的能力，以及创造法律和倡导法律的能力，使正义变得更加可能。”
琼斯在听证会上直接向他的共和党同僚发表讲话。
“我向你们祈祷，即使你们驱逐我，你们仍然要采取行动解决大规模枪击事件的危机，因为如果我被驱逐出这里，我会回到那里，每周都和人民在一起，要求你们采取行动，”他说。
'Undemocratic': Tennessee legislature expels 2 lawmakers over gun violence protest
Two Democratic lawmakershave been ousted from the Republican-controlled Tennessee state House of Representatives and one was allowed to stay in what marks the first partisan expulsion in the state's modern history.
The three lawmakers -- State Reps. Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson, who were expelled, and Rep. Gloria Johnson -- faced separate expulsion hearings Thursday for allegedly violating the chamber's rules of decorum by participating in a gun control protest at the state Capitol last week.
At one point during the protest, the trio stood at the well of the House chambers, leading chants with a megaphone. The demonstration came in the wake of thedeadly Covenant School shootingin Nashville on March 27, where a former student fatally shot three children and three adults, police have said.
Days later, Tennessee Republican Reps. Bud Hulsey, Gino Bulso and Andrew Farmersponsored the expulsion resolutions, arguing the three Democratic lawmakers "did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives through their individual and collective actions."
Jones, the first lawmaker expelled when House members voted to adopt HR65 Thursday, called the resolution "a spectacle" and "a lynch mob assembled to not lynch me, but our democratic process."
"We called for you all to ban assault weapons and you respond with an assault on democracy," Jones said during his 20-minute opening statement.
Following the adoption of the expulsion resolution, Jones said his ouster set a "precedent that any member who voices dissent or opposition can be expelled from the legislative body."
"Today is a very dangerous day for America," he said in a hallway interview after the vote.
Pearson, who sang "Power to the People" and quoted from the Bible during his opening statement, called the resolution to remove him an "injustice against the First Amendment."
"Speaking up on behalf of the last, the lost, the least, those who've been left out, those who've been ignored, those who've been silenced but refuse to be silent anymore, that does not deserve expulsion from this House," he said before he was expelled from the chamber Thursday evening.
During her hearing, Johnson, the sole lawmaker to survive the expulsion resolutions, denied allegations that she "shouted" from the well during the demonstration last week. But she maintained that she joined the protest, breaching House decorum, in a needed effort to stir "good trouble."
"My friends in school all called me 'Little Miss Law and Order' because I'm a rule-follower, and I know that rules sometimes have to be broken and sometimes you have to get in good trouble," she said.
"I may have broken a rule, but the words in this document are false and I did what I was compelled to do based on speaking for the voters in my district who were begging me to bring this issue forward," she later added, gesturing at HR64, which would have expelled her from the legislative body.
Following the votes, Republican Speaker Cameron Sexton, who previouslyaccused the trioof attempting to incite an insurrection, said he personally voted for all three Democratic members to be expelled.
"I think what you heard on the House floor today is that those members took away the voice of this chamber for 45 minutes when they were on the House floor, leading the protest to those and disrupting the business that we were doing," he said in an interview with NewsNation. "What I will say is there are consequences for action."
The three Republican lawmakers who introduced the expulsion resolutions, Hulsey, Bulso and Farmer, did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.
Earlier in the Thursday session, the legislature passedHB322, a bill that requires schools to implement a number of safety plans and security systems, including requiring locked doors and active shooter training for school security guards, over the objections of the three members who faced expulsion.
"This bill is not about school safety," Jones said, adding the move to "make our schools militarized zones" is borne out of refusal "to address the real issue, which is easy access to military grade weapons."
Johnson, a former teacher, decried the possibility of "gun battles at our schoolhouse door," while Pearson argued that "the root cause that each of us have to address is this gun violence epidemic."
"We don't need a solution that says if you don't lock a door or get someone with a gun, we need a solution that says people shouldn't be going to schools and to houses and to neighborhoods with weapons of war," Pearson added.
Tennessee State Representative Justin Jones, Rep. Justin Pearson and Rep. Gloria Johnson, call on their colleagues to pass gun control legislation from the well of the House Chambers at the State Ca...Show moreundefined
George Walker IV/USA Today Network via Reuters
President Joe Biden said in a statement that the move to oust the lawmakers was "shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent," arguing Republicans in Tennessee were focused on punishing lawmakers who "stood in solidarity with students and families and helped lift their voices" rather than pushing for gun control reforms.
"This nation was built on peaceful protest. No elected official should lose their job simply for raising their voice – especially when they’re doing it on behalf of our children," said former President Barack Obama on Twitter Thursday night. "What happened in Tennessee is the latest example of a broader erosion of civility and democratic norms. Silencing those who disagree with us is a sign of weakness, not strength, and it won’t lead to progress."
Since the Civil War, the Tennessee state House hasvoted only twiceto expel a member.
But the effort to expel the three Tennessee lawmakers is one of several recent moves by state legislaturesto penalize lawmakers of underrepresented backgroundstaking a stand on progressive causes.
For example, Oklahoma Republicans removed the state’s only nonbinary legislator from House committees after the lawmaker provided refuge to a transgender rights activist.
As of Thursday, the trio of Democratic lawmakers said they have already lost ID access to the state Capitol and been stripped of any committee assignments.
But Pearson and Jones, flanked by their fellow Democratic lawmakers as they heard the results of their expulsion votes, said they remain undeterred in fighting for their constituents.
"We're gonna keep fighting for people in Nashville and Memphis, across the state of Tennessee and across the United States of America who want justice. We deserve it. This is our birthright. Our inheritance is not just some pieces of paper and constitutions and rules," Pearson said in a hallway interview following his expulsion. "It is the advocacy and the ability to protest for what is right and to create laws and to advocate for laws that make justice more possible."
Jones addressed his Republican colleagues directly during his hearing.
"My prayer to you, is that even if you expel me that you still act to address the crisis of mass shootings because if I'm expelled from here, I'll be back out there with the people, every week, demanding that you act," he said.
