By: Ariana Coghill | Mother Jones
In a unanimous vote Monday, the Nashville Metropolitan Council voted to reinstate Rep. Justin Jones, one of the two Black Democratic lawmakers expelled last week after protesting for gun control from the chamber floor. Their demonstration was in response to a deadly mass shooting at a Nashville grade school that killed six people.
“This awakened to the world that there is no democracy in Tennessee and that today’s vote is a very dangerous precedent for the nation,” Jones told Mother Jones’ Garrison Hayes moments after his expulsion. “In a week after a mass shooting, it is so outrageous that the first reaction of this body is to expel me rather than to pass common sense gun laws.”
Related: A quick chat with ousted Tennessee state Rep. Justin Pearson
The expulsions of Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson prompted national outrage, including a statement from the White House condemning the move as “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.”
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