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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Back in the House [1]

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Date: 2023-04-13  

We begin today with an essay by newly reinstated Tennessee House Rep. Justin J. Pearson, for CNN.

This should be a chastening moment for revanchist forces in Tennessee’s legislature and across the country. Over the long haul, the undemocratic machinations employed to oust us from office are destined to fail. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once famously said that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. Events this week demonstrated, more than ever, that this is indeed the case.

The stated reason for my expulsion was that I, Rep. Jones and another Democratic colleague, Gloria Johnson, “breached decorum” by peacefully walking side by side to the well of the House Chamber to acknowledge rampant gun violence that has victimized and traumatized grieving children and families across our state and around the nation.

If decorum was breached, it was by the heavy-handed Republican supermajority in the Tennessee House, which denied us the chance to speak during regular order, cut off our microphones, later disabled our voting machines and revoked our access to the building.

[...]

The spectacle was a gross miscalculation by Republicans in the chamber. It turns out that most Americans care deeply about democracy. Most people care about equality and progress. And over two-thirds of Americans — including four out of 10 Republicans — support the kind of common sense gun safety laws that Rep. Jones, Rep. Johnson and I were protesting in favor of, in the wake of the senseless March 27 Covenant School massacre.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/13/2163472/-Abbreviated-Pundit-Roundup-Back-in-the-House

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