Tennessee House expels two members who led protests on the chamber's floor.

The expulsions were justified, but were they wise?

Yesterday, during a lull in the Washington-Colorado baseball game — the Nats were batting — I surfed over to CSPAN, figuring I’d see a panel discussion on the war in Ukraine or a session of the U.S. House. To my amazement, the cameras were in Nashville. They were covering the Tennessee House’s consideration of whether to expel certain Democratic members.

The expulsion motions stemmed from the disruption of legislature by two members. The two — Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, both young blacks — took over the well of the chamber and used a megaphone to lead a pro-gun-legislation protest. A third member — Gloria Johnson, a white woman — stood with them during the protest, but apparently did not shout or otherwise disrupt the session.

The legislature voted to expel the two disrupters. Their female ally narrowly survived the motion, which required a two-thirds vote.

The behavior of Jones and Pearson justified their dismissal. No member has the right to halt the regular business of the legislature by indulging in a protest.

These kinds of breaches are serious enough to warrant expulsion. Censuring the offenders would be a joke. Stripping them of committee assignments might not be sufficient to deter future misconduct, especially in a case like this where the members belong to a party that makes up only a small portion of the legislature, leaving them with no ability to influence a committee.

The shamelessly biased mainstream media coverage of the expulsions claims they are “unprecedented.” But the same coverage notes that in the 1860s, the Tennessee legislature expelled six members for “contempt of the authority of the House.” This pretty much describes the misconduct of Jones and Pearson. “Unprecedented” better describes that misconduct than it does the expulsions.

This reality didn’t stop Joe Biden from claiming that the expulsions are “without precedent.” He added that “punishing lawmakers who joined thousands of peaceful protesters calling for action” — gun control legislation — “is shocking [and] undemocratic.”

But the lawmakers, whose seats will be filled through a democratic process, weren’t punished for joining peaceful protesters. They were punished for protesting on the House floor and thereby disrupting legislative proceedings.

Suppose Marjorie Taylor Greene, backed by thousands of protesters who desire a particular congressional action, used a megaphone to bring proceedings of the U.S. House to a halt. Undoubtedly, Biden’s reaction would be very different, as would that of the mainstream media.

Of the three members who faced possible expulsion only the white, Gloria Johnson, escaped. Thus, the race card has been played, including by Johnson, herself. She said the difference in treatment “might have to do with the color of our skin.”

But Johnson saved her seat with an “impassioned speech” in which she argued that she didn’t engage in any actual disruption. By her own account, then, her situation was not like that of her black colleagues.

For Johnson successfully to argue to keep her membership on the grounds she didn’t behave like her black colleagues, and then to attribute her success to race is sickening.

In sum, the expulsions of Jones and Pearson were justified and non-racist. But were they wise?

These two community activists were stuck on the back bench of a legislative body strongly controlled by the GOP. They had zero influence and very little recognition.

It’s likely they engaged in the unprecedented disruption of the House at least in part to draw attention to themselves. Thanks to their expulsions, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams (as a friend of mine puts it) and now are viewed by some as martyrs. One or both may become the new Julian Bond.

Thus, the reason why expulsion, rather than a lesser punishment, ordinarily makes sense in cases like this — to deter future misconduct — is of questionable applicability here. The new-found fame of Jones and Pearson may encourage other obscure legislators trapped in chambers dominated by the opposition to act up.

I understand why Republican members of the Tennessee House were deeply upset by the outrageous behavior of the two grandstanding members, and I don’t blame them for expelling the two. By doing so, however, they gave Jones and Pearson what they crave and may have set the stage for copycat behavior in Tennessee and elsewhere.