Tennessee’s Republican House Speaker has removed all Democratic lawmakers from their committee positions following their participation in protests during last week’s redistricting vote.
Speaker Cameron Sexton announced the disciplinary action Tuesday, five days after the GOP-controlled legislature passed a new congressional map that eliminates a Black-majority district centered around Memphis.
The Thursday vote in Nashville, which is expected to flip the Democratic seat to Republican control in November’s midterm elections, sparked intense demonstrations. Activists shouted from the visitor’s gallery while Black legislators linked arms in prayer at the front of the chamber as protesters used air horns and chanted against the redistricting plan.
Critics have denounced the elimination of the majority-Black district as reminiscent of Jim Crow-era racial discrimination in the South.
In his letter to House Democratic Leader Karen Camper, Sexton accused House Democrats of “instigating and encouraging” disruptions and creating “disorder on the House floor” during Thursday’s proceedings.
Sexton specifically cited lawmakers for “interlocking arms in the well of the House,” “blocking aisles on the House floor,” and using “prohibited props and noisemakers.”
Republicans control 75 of the 99 seats in Tennessee’s House, while Democrats hold 24.
Representative Justin Jones, a Black lawmaker from Nashville, shared his removal notice on social media, calling it “the same pattern of racial discrimination and authoritarian abuse we have come to expect.”
Democratic Leader Camper, who represents Memphis and is also Black, responded with a Facebook post condemning the redistricting as “one of the most troubling abuses of power this legislature has seen in recent memory.”
“When Democrats stand up, speak out, and expose what is happening in this chamber, the response from this supermajority is retaliation,” Camper wrote. “We are hurt. We are disappointed. But we are not intimidated.”
The redistricting move follows similar actions by several Southern states taking advantage of recent Supreme Court decisions that have weakened the Voting Rights Act.
