President Joe Biden will host the three Tennessee Democratic lawmakers who faced expulsion votes from Republicans for their role in a gun safety protest following a mass shooting at a Nashville elementary school at the White House on Monday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced.
Biden will meet with the trio of Democrats dubbed the “Tennessee Three” — Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, two Black lawmakers who were expelled from the body, and Gloria Johnson, a white woman who survived expulsion by one vote — to “continue that conversation” about gun safety, Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.
“The president’s been very clear about how important it is to take the next steps when it comes to gun reform,” she said. “He saw these three legislators as taking that next step when calling for an assault weapons ban, which is incredibly important. Weapons of war should not be on the streets.”
The trio of lawmakers were targeted by Republicans after they participated in a protest on the Tennessee House floor following the shooting at The Covenant School last month, which left three adults and three students, all aged 9, dead. They were accused of “bringing disorder and dishonor” to the legislature and and participating in “disorderly behavior.”
Their expulsion by the Republican-led legislature sparked outcry from critics who blasted the action as undemocratic and thrust the lawmakers into the national spotlight. Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Nashville to meet with the lawmakers days after the expulsion vote, and a group of Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked the Justice Department to open up an investigation.
“We are here because they and their colleagues … they chose to show courage in the face of an extreme tragedy,” Harris said earlier this month. “They chose to lead and show courage. To say that a democracy allows for places where the people’s voice will be heard and honored and respected.”
Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that Biden spoke to the lawmakers after their expulsion votes and “thanked them for their leadership in seeking to ban assault weapons and standing up for the democratic values.” The Tennessee Democrats thanked Biden for his leadership on gun safety “and for spotlighting the undemocratic and unprecedented attacks on them” by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature, she added.
Both Jones and Pearson were reinstated by local officials shortly after their expulsion, and they have since returned to the legislature. Both lawmakers will have to face special elections in August.
