Tennessee Democrats who protested new map stripped of committee assignments

Tennessee Democratic lawmakers in the state House have been removed from leadership positions as punishment for how they carried out fiery protests against Republicans’ redistricting agenda. 

Republican Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton removed Democratic lawmakers from all House standing committees and subcommittees until next session, “except where membership is required.” The development affects multiple lawmakers, including state Reps. Justin Pearson, Justin Jones, Gabby Salinas, Gloria Johnson, and Aftyn Behn. One letter sent to Democratic House Leader Karen Camper stated that she would remain on the Government Operations Committee only as required by House rules.

In a letter, Sexton said that the lawmakers took actions “aimed at disrupting the democratic and legislative processes and creating disorder” on the House floor, including “instigating and encouraging disruptions of the legislative process in coordination with paid protestors and attendees in the gallery.” 

Democrats affected by the committee changes blasted Republicans over the punishment. 

“Just as my white Republican colleagues chose racial retaliation against Tennessee’s Black voters, the Speaker of the House is now choosing retaliation against a Black lawmaker for standing up against their Jim Crow racial gerrymander,” Jones said in a statement alleging the GOP stripped him of committee assignments “for protesting their white supremacist agenda.”

“Speaker of the TN House Cameron Sexton just removed me and every Democrat — and therefore every Black elected official in the state legislature from any committee we served on,” Pearson added. “This move strips nearly 2 million Tennesseans from the representation they deserve in TN state leg.”

The protests took place during last week’s special session over Republicans’ redistricting efforts in Tennessee, prompting a response from state troopers. Republicans passed new maps that eliminated the state’s only Democratic, majority-minority district in Memphis in response to the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision, which gave states greater freedom to draw political maps without prioritizing racial outcomes. 

Democrats pushed back against Republicans’ move to redraw the map without prioritizing racial outcomes in Rep. Steve Cohen’s (D-TN) 9th Congressional District. Lawmakers such as Pearson and Johnson accused the GOP of reverting to white supremacy and using the new maps as “racist tools” to take away black political voting power, and some protesters showed up to demonstrations wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods. 

When the state House voted last week to pass the new maps, Democrats staged a walkout, locking arms at the front of the chamber. KeShaun Pearson, the brother of the Democratic lawmaker, was among several protesters arrested after refusing to leave the House gallery, according to WPLN. Jones was seen in video footage lighting a small Confederate flag on fire as he participated in the walkout.

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Redistricting advocates have pushed back against criticism, pointing out that voters in the historically majority black district have elected a white representative, Cohen, to lead Memphis since 2006. Sexton told FOX 17 News redistricting has nothing to do with racism, framing it as a purely partisan effort to boost the Republican Party’s power in Congress. 

“Justin Pearson says everything’s racist,” he said. “What you do know is that other states are doing the same thing. Virginia turned their whole state blue. California’s looking at doing blue.”