TN GOP House Speaker Boots Dems From Committees For Insufficient Deference To White Supremacy
Jim Crow 2.0 gaining steam.
Last week the Tennessee Legislature, given the green light by the US Supreme Court, wiped out the state’s sole remaining majority-Black congressional district, cracking the city of Memphis into three districts that are now majority white and Republican. Yesterday, Tennessee’s Asshole Speaker of the House, noted asshole Cameron Sexton, helped hasten along Republicans’ consolidation of one-party rule in Tennessee by stripping House Democrats of all their committee assignments, to teach them a lesson for protesting Jim Crow 2.0.
It seems that the Democrats’ protests against the Republican power grab were very indecorous, particularly the part where state Rep. Justin Jones burned a (paper) Confederate flag in the rotunda of the Capitol.
In a letter to House Democratic Leader Karen Camper, Sexton explained that her caucus simply had been quite rude indeed, and for no reason at all beyond the state’s largest city, and its Black majority residents, losing any voice at all in Congress.
As everyone knows, when democracy is being overthrown by white men, one must only show disapproval by not joining in the applause. One may also frown, but not in a manner that would detract from the solemnity of the Klan takeover of the state.
Prefer a non-Substack subscription? The button below will take any amount of your choosing at Paypal — let us know if you want the newsletter subscription too! they’re separate! — or we have a Patreon too.
Among the offenses to the dignity and order of the power grab, Sexton grumbled, Democrats had sinned by “interlocking arms in the well of the House,” “blocking aisles on the House floor” and “the use of prohibited props and noisemakers on the House floor.”
Also, to make clear just how conspiracy-brain-rotted Republicans are, even in official communications, Sexton also accused Dems of “instigating and encouraging disruptions of the legislative process in coordination with paid protestors and attendees in the gallery. [emphasis added — Dok].” After all, no one in their right mind could possibly object to eliminating Black representation, so George Soros must have paid people to come to the Capitol to protest. Sexton didn’t offer any pay slips to back up that claim.
Sexton didn’t specify when, if ever, Democratic members’ committee seats would be restored. Perhaps that’ll have to wait until after the Lege redraws all the state legislative district maps to eliminate all 24 seats still held by Democrats in the 99-member House. Once they no longer hold office, they can have their committee places back. It worked for Major Major.
Perhaps the Klan Lege will also recalculate the state’s more than 1.1 million Black residents, counting them as 660,000 persons, and then apportioning them into white Republican legislative districts. We’re sure it’d be possible to persuade Sam Alito and colleagues with an originalist argument for that compromise.
Tennessee Democrats were not at all surprised, because Sexton’s a sleazy fucker whose only tool is a hammer and everyone looks like a nail to him. Previously as House speaker, Sexton led the 2023 Republican vote to expel Democratic Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson for standing — out of turn!— on the House floor to demand protections for their constituents from gun violence. After that, voters sent them directly back to the House in special elections.
Jones posted to Instagram the letter Sexton sent to strip him of his committee assignments, and wrote that no, he will not be moved:
As Evan noted in Tabs this morning, other Tennessee Dems were just as wonderfully defiant and unwilling to give up the fight for democracy.
State Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville) said Sexton’s action was entirely predictable, because Sexton himself is entirely predictable: “We were protesting maps that destroyed representation in Memphis,” Johnson said. “The speaker's response was to deny representation. His only response is to deny representation.”
Johnson noted that Sexton’s action doesn’t simply affect the members he’s punishing, but also their constituents:
“Each person he kicked off committees represents 70,000 people,” Johnson said. “The committees are education, they are health, they are criminal justice, civil justice. Everything that affects your lives is gone over in these committees.”
OK, but those people, mostly in the state’s very sinful and illegal big cities, went and elected Democrats, knowing full well that Republicans run the state. It’s not like Sexton is required to give them the time of day. House Democrats represent some two million people in Tennessee, and they all need to learn their lesson about who the (white) boss is, like the (Republican) Constitution says.
[CNN / Knoxville News Sentinel / Democracy Docket / WKRN]
Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please become a paid subscriber, or make a one-time (or recurring) donation with this here button.
Who knew burning a paper version of the Confederate flag could be turned into a Reichstag Fire?
I'm trying to come up with a word for a political system defined by one party rule, help me out here?