The expulsion of two Democrats last year has been the undercurrent of an already contentious session that is set to touch on free speech, gun laws and an overhaul of school funding.
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State Representative Justin Jones spoke from the House floor on the first day of the legislative session last month.
When the Tennessee legislature convened on Thursday, custom dictated that Representative Justin Jones, the Nashville Democrat who was expelled last year, take his turn to lead the House in the Pledge of Allegiance.
He quietly declined, and once again drew the ire of Republicans. Saying that Mr. Jones’s behavior was a “disgrace,” State Representative Jeremy Faison, a member of the Republican leadership, went so far as to call for his resignation.
Mr. Jones, who has risen in national prominence by sparring with the state’s Republican supermajority, later responded that he “couldn’t bring myself to join their performative patriotism,” given the party’s support for former President Donald J. Trump and what Mr. Jones described as an effort to “undermine liberty and justice for all.”
It was one of the clearest signs yet that the animosity from 2023, when Republicans expelled Mr. Jones and State Representative Justin Pearson of Memphis for leading a gun control protest on the House floor, had spilled into the new year.
And the festering tensions are surfacing even before lawmakers tackle the major work of the year, including substantial changes to the budget and a proposed overhaul of state education funding.
It is, in part, a political hangover of the legislature’s own making. When called back for a brief session last summer to respond to the Covenant School mass shooting in Nashville, Republicans punted on taking up most legislation until their return in January.
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Source: nytimes.com
