By
Former state Rep. Justin Jones said the environment in the Tennessee state House was "toxic" before Republicans voted to expel him Thursday night for protesting against gun violence on the floor.
Justin was one of two Democrats, both Black men, expelled for violating the chamber's rules of decorum. Another vote failed to expel a third Democrat, state Rep. Gloria Johnson, a white woman, who protested following a mass shooting at a Nashville school.
"I think the Tennessee legislature is a very toxic work environment for anyone who does not fit the the image that they want to portray," Jones said Friday on Meet the Press NOW. "Being a young black lawmaker being 27 years old, and someone who is outspoken from my district, that's the reason why I was elected."
"What we're dealing with is a body that is dealing — that traffics in the rhetoric of racism, and that traffics in these anti-democracy attacks that harm us all," Jones later added.
Both Jones and Johnson, who also joined Meet the Press NOW, described GOP leaders taking actions to stifle debate, including cutting off microphones, limiting time for debate and turning off Jones' voting machine on the floor.
Johnson said the standoff in the state House was inevitable, given Republicans' supermajority in the chamber.
"It's the supermajority, the fact that they really don't even have to allow us to talk and they are able to pass any rules," she said.
But the ousted lawmakers could return to the chamber, with a county panel appointing them to their seats before special elections.
A majority of the members of the Nashville Metropolitan Council have said they would reinstate Jones to the state House. And Jones told Meet the Press NOW he would accept the appointment.
"I definitely would be honored to continue to fight for my district. Because what's happening now is that there's 78,000 people in one of the most diverse districts in Tennessee, that don't have a voice on Capitol Hill in district 52, because of the extreme retaliation of this Republican supermajority," Jones said.
"No matter what I know that there's a special election, and so we'll continue to organize, continue to speak up and whether I'm inside or outside the chamber, I will always stand with the people," he later added.
