The House of Representatives of the U.S. state of Tennessee has voted to expel two Democratic congressmen for their involvement in gun control protests following the attack that left six people dead, three of them children, at a school in Nashville, the state capital.
On Thursday of last week, dozens of demonstrators entered the Republican-majority House to protest in favor of greater regulation of gun control, especially automatic weapons like the one used in the Nashville school shooting a few days earlier.
Among the demonstrators were three Democratic Party congressmen, without being initially recognized by the rest of the congressmen in the House, as reconstructed by the U.S. network CNN.
The controversy came when, days later, Republican congressmen accused these three Democrats of having participated in the demonstration, showing videos in which they can be identified, and initiated a process that allows their expulsion if there is a two-thirds majority vote, a measure that has been used only twice since 1860.
One of the votes did not reach sufficient agreement to expel Congresswoman Gloria Johnson, who has also pointed out that her expulsion, that of the only white congresswoman among the three defendants, was also the only one that did not go forward.
Justin Jones and Justin Pearson will not be able to continue their work in the federal Congress, but they have reaffirmed their commitment to the reform of U.S. gun legislation.
We called for a ban on assault weapons and you responded with an assault on democracy,» Jones reproached in his speech in front of the chamber before the vote.
The White House, through its spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, condemned this possible expulsion hours before the vote took place: »That this vote is going to take place is alarming, undemocratic and unprecedented. Across Tennessee and across the United States, our children are paying the price for the actions of Republican legislators who continue to refuse to act to create tougher gun laws.
»The president (Joe Biden) will continue to call on Congress to act to ban assault weapons (…), and federal officials should do the same,» he said.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
