Tennessee House Advances Bill to Ban Reappointing Lawmakers Booted For Behavior
28th February 2024
Republicans in the Tennessee House voted Monday to advance a bill that would prevent local governments from reappointing state lawmakers who were expelled due to behavior.
The proposal is one of several restrictions being considered after the GOP’s high-profile expulsion proceedings last April against Democratic state Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson. It would bar what happened after: Jones and Pearson were reappointed and quickly went back to work.
One the one hand, people in an electoral district ought to be able to choose whomever they want to represent them. This is of the essence of democracy.
On the other hand, no legislature can be effective if it contains ‘members’ who won’t obey the rules and allow the body to do what it’s there for, which is a problem as old as the activities of Irish nationalists in the British Parliament. Black elected officials are quite fond of being disruptive when they don’t get their own way, which is the situation in Tennessee–the whole civil-rights-movement-civil-disobedience shtick.
This is the puzzle of modern politics.