Justin Jones, a Democrat from Tennessee who was expelled last week for protesting against firearms, has been readmitted to the state House. This was decided on Monday by the Nashville city council, which unanimously elected him interim deputy to fill the seat left vacant by his own expulsion. Jones’ expulsion was voted on Thursday by the overwhelming Republican majority in the Tennessee House, along with that of another Democratic congressman, Justin J. Pearson. The latter is also expected to be readmitted on an interim basis Wednesday, following an approval vote by the Shelby County Election Commission.
The expulsion of the two had been commented with very emphatic tones by the US press, and by many newspapers defined as an historical and exceptional fact: this is because, although it was not the first expulsion in local political history, it had been the first voted for by a single party ( the Republicans in this case) against members of the opposing party (Democrats).
The two – both young African Americans – had interrupted a legislative session in the previous days to ask for new laws to be approved on the control and prohibition of the sale of firearms: they had decided to protest after the massacre in a Nashville elementary school on 27 March, in which a 28-year-old man killed six people, including three children. Another Democratic congresswoman, Gloria Johnson, had also protested with them, whose expulsion had not passed by one vote. Johnson is white, and she herself said her vote in favor of her may have had something to do with her skin color.
