April 10 (UPI) — The Nashville Metro Council voted to reinstate Justin Jones days after his expulsion from the Tennessee House of Representatives.
Local commissions were set to hold votes that could bring back two Black Democratic lawmakers who were expelled from the Tennessee Legislature last week.
On Monday, the Nashville Metropolitan Council in House District 52 voted unanimously in favor of reinstating Jones. A majority of its 39 members indicated their support for the expelled legislator prior to Monday’s vote. Thirty-six members voted during Monday’s meeting.
“This is about people power. It shows that people power is the ultimate power, not the decision of [House Speaker] Cameron Sexton, but the decision of the people,” Jones said after the vote, reported by ABC News.
Jones was sworn in on the steps of the State Capitol shortly after the vote was counted, according to NBC News.
The Shelby County Board of Commission, meanwhile, plans a vote Wednesday that could reinstate Justin Pearson in Memphis’ District 86 after Chairman Mickell Lowery called on the Democratic majority to grant reinstatement, saying the expulsions were “conducted in a hasty manner without consideration of other corrective action methods.”
“I am amongst the over 68,000 citizens who were stripped of having a representative at the state due to the unfortunate outcome of the state assembly’s vote,” he said in a statement.
Following the controversial ousters, county authorities are charged with filling the legislative vacancies on an interim basis until a special election is held to permanently fill the seats.
“I will vote to name Justin Jones back into the State House to represent my constituents in House District 52,” Council member Bob Mendes tweeted last week after he heard an “outcry” from his constituents.
Other council members in the district expressed outrage over the expulsions, in which Jones and Pearson were booted from the Tennessee House by majority Republicans after they staged a protest in the State Capitol to demand gun control.
The move to also expel their white colleague, Rep. Gloria Johnson, who joined the demonstration on the House floor, failed by one vote.
“They removed the voice from 140,000 people who voted for them,” said council member Burkley Allen. “It’s a terrible precedent to set, that we disagree with you and you’ve disrupted our House proceedings and therefore we’re expelling you. That’s not the way democracy works.”
The three legislators stormed the House podium in a call for stronger gun control measures after a school shooting in Nashville killed six people on March 27.
After the protest, Republicans accused the trio of breaking the rules of decorum in an attempt to incite an insurrection, but the move has been widely criticized as political overreach.
The Tennessee constitution says the governor must declare a special election up to 60 days after legislative seats are vacated. From there, a district vote would be scheduled to occur about a month later, and the winners would have about a year remaining in the terms to serve.
In a Sunday interview with NBC News, both men said they would accept reappointments to the House and would run again in the special election.
“This attack against us is hurting all people in our state,” Jones said.