The United States has a longstanding history of gun violence. It is a public health issue that affects everyone. The nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety ranks Tennessee as having the country’s 12th-highest rate of gun deaths. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention backs this up, with data showing that the state has among the highest rates of firearm-related mortality across the past few years.
This statistical reality combined with the shooting at a Christian school in Nashville led Republican Gov. Bill Lee to announce legislation in April that would create more school security. When Lee dared to add some minuscule regulations to an existing “order of protection” law that would temporarily withhold firearms from someone facing mental health issues, his political party balked. On Monday, Lee pushed the state legislators back for a special session aimed at managing public safety, and his Republican colleagues began right where they left off—trying to stymie democratic debate on the issue.
State Rep. Justin Jones shot a video in the Tennessee rotunda shortly before the session began. Pointing to the heavy law enforcement presence and the push to keep the public as far away from the proceedings as possible, Jones predicted what was to come. “This is our special session that was supposed to be around gun violence,” he said, “but what we see is a party that is more concerned with stifling and stopping free speech and dissent than they are about stopping the gun violence that is plaguing our community and state.”
Jones was one of three Democratic legislators punished for protesting the do-nothing conservatives. Jones and fellow state Rep. Justin J. Pearson were even expelled from the Tennessee House in a nakedly tyrannical and racist move by Republicans.
However, at the start of Monday’s special session, the Republican-led House chose not to tackle guns or public safety first. Instead, they introduced a series of disciplinary rules. The new rules are designed to allow the Republican supermajority to control what can and cannot be said and who can be censored on the floor.
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When the rules went up for debate, Jones was one of the first Democratic representatives to speak out. “We’re already starting off on the wrong foot,” he said before quickly getting to the point: “Where in these rules can we hold the speaker accountable for abusing constitutional rights and misapplying the rules based on a member’s skin color as opposed to treating every member in this body as an equal member?”
In response, House Speaker Cameron Sexton, who may not even live in his own district, banged his gavel and said Jones was out of order.
Democratic Rep. Jason Powell of Nashville drilled down on the fear he had about the rules. “They scare me as an American who believes in a free state of democracy,” he said. “We didn't come up here to limit the speech of the members of this body. We came up here to attack a problem. Instead, we are starting off by amending the rules to limit democracy. It's ridiculous. It's absurd. Shame on you for voting for these rules. This is outrageous. I can't believe this.”
Naturally, this didn’t stop Republicans. They passed the rules package on a party-line vote.
The special session has only just begun. As for the ostensible reason for its existence, Republicans have offered few bills to aid public safety in terms of gun violence. Their most substantial legal maneuver may be an idea to try teens in adult court for gun-related crimes. But it’s the sort of timid bill that would do virtually nothing to mitigate gun violence. All this despite a recent poll showing that Tennesseans support a wider range of gun control measures.
Democratic Rep. Bo Mitchell said it best: “Having a special session on gun violence where I can’t introduce a bill on guns is kind of asinine.”
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American political parties might often seem stuck in their ways, but they can and in fact do change positions often. Joining us on this week's episode of "The Downballot" is political scientist David Karol, who tells us how and why both the Democratic and Republican parties have adjusted their views on a wide range of issues over the years. Karol offers three different models for how these transformations happen—and explains why voters often stick with their parties even after these shifts. He concludes by offering tips to activists seeking to push their parties when they're not changing fast enough.
