Exclusive: Tennessee House Speaker Defends Move to Expel Dems Who Led Rowdy Gun-Control Protest
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Less than two weeks after the shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, embattled Tennessee Republicans are grappling with how best to secure schools in the state. They are also facing down progressive detractors, both within the Tennessee Legislature and in the White House, who have accused them of failing to respond adequately to the senseless killing of three children and three adults.
National Review spoke to House Speaker Cameron Sexton to understand what legislation is being pushed through and how the lower chamber plans to deal with three representatives who disrupted House proceedings last week with a bullhorn.
“By doing what they’re doing with these three Democratic legislators, they’re shrugging in the face of yet another tragic school shooting while our kids continue to pay the price,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre Tuesday.
For Sexton, the White House’s response to events in Tennessee is divorced from reality on many levels.
“I don’t think anybody in the Biden administration has reached out to anybody in Tennessee, so it’s interesting to say that we’re shrugging when they don’t know what we’re doing and what we’re considering and what we’re talking about,” explained Sexton.
“It’s just them being them,” he added. “We don’t really worry about what they say. We’re gonna do what we can to protect Tennessee children and Tennessee families in communities and make sure that kids feel safe in any school that they’re in whether it’s public or private.”
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has already signed into law a bill that enables private schools to contract with local law enforcement to hire School Resource Officers, or SROs. Sexton said that not only do these SROs “provide security, but they also provide a lot of other resources in the school as far as building relationships, listening to students, and being able to provide a lot more guidance and ability than just securing the school.”
This week, Lee in consultation with Tennessee legislators introduced a proposal to provide more than $200 million in funding to public schools and crucially, private schools like Covenant. National Review reported last week that Christian schools throughout the country have increased security measures in response to the shooting and are struggling to figure out how to fund increased expenditures.
The new Tennessee proposal requires private and public schools to develop annual safety plans. A statewide homeland security network of 122 agents is to be established at a cost of $30 million to assist in school security. An amount of $7 million is earmarked for private school security upgrades and $20 million for public school security upgrades. An additional $8 million will be reserved for school-based behavioral health liaisons across the state. Finally, the majority of the funding — $140 million — is reserved for SROs at every public school, which outnumber private schools in Tennessee as elsewhere.
“[The proposal] would lighten the burden on public and private schools both,” said Sexton. “There are some public schools that can’t afford to have SROs.”
He explained that the Legislature will look into increasing the $7 million reserved for private school security upgrades if needed, adding that that funding will come in the form of grants that have no strings attached, thereby preserving school choice.
According to Sexton, new information has come out about Audrey Hale, a former Covenant student who identified as a man, that confirms their legislation may deter future shootings.
“Her first choice was to go to a mall, but she chose not to do that because there was too much security there,” said Sexton. “We do feel like having security does limit…and provides one barrier for people who are looking to do these [shootings] in schools.”
The speaker explained that Tennessee Republicans are now looking at the budget and they’re also looking at how other states like Florida and Indiana have pursued security measures to see if anything else can be done.
One possible avenue of legislation that Sexton and other Tennessee legislators are mulling over is a variation on a red flag law.
For Sexton, however, there is a problem: “All the red flag laws are about removing guns. I haven’t seen any yet that show that those individuals are getting any treatment.”
“What we need is laws that focus on that individual who is suicidal or proposing harm to themselves or to others. We need to get them into a crisis mental-health unit to get them the help that they need and the assessment to see what treatments they need,” he explained.
“Let’s get them into a crisis unit to help them get help and then let’s talk about how to go about doing the other stuff,” Sexton said, referring to the removal of firearms.
The speaker explained that there’s been a lot of speculation that Hale shouldn’t have bought a gun on account of being under doctor’s orders. However, he said, the exact dates are unknown and it’s hard to say when Hale bought the firearms. Sexton urged the public to wait for more information from the authorities.
Asked about Hale’s motive and whether her so-called “manifesto” ought to be released, Sexton again urged patience for what the authorities have to say. He did however agree that it should be released at some point.
The speaker then turned to the behavior of three of his colleagues in the House, the aftermath of which is grabbing national headlines. Democratic state representatives Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones, and Justin Pearson staged demonstrations on the House floor last Thursday in an attempt to draw attention to gun violence. Jones also got into a scuffle with a fellow lawmaker and all three encouraged rowdy protesters in the balcony.
“What they did is they hijacked the House floor which has never been done in our history,” explained Sexton. “They pulled out a bullhorn. They weren’t recognized. They were ruled out of order and they led a protest from the House floor with a bullhorn to those in the balcony. They shut down the proceedings of the House. We had to go into recess due to their actions.”
“They disregarded the Sergeant at Arms asking them to leave the well at multiple occasions and they really didn’t stop yelling in their bullhorn until I had to clear out the balcony because of behavior that was caused blatantly by those three members,” continued Sexton. “Those actions that they did on the House floor deserve expulsion.”
He also countered the argument that Tennessee Republicans are silencing the voices of these lawmakers.
“They speak on bills more than anybody. They speak in committees more than anybody. They’ve had the same opportunities and they’re held to the same rules and standards as all other members in the House body, but what they did had nothing to do with the protests that went on inside or outside the chamber,” said Sexton. “It was about their actions inside the chamber and what they did to disrupt the proceedings.”
Sexton added that “when they came off the House floor, they asked their caucus if they were going to be arrested.”
“When you ask someone if you’re going to be arrested, then you know that you’ve done something very wrong,” Sexton said.
The speaker has already stripped the trio of their committee assignments and expulsion is likely.
Sexton explained that he had no problem with the vast majority of protesters who descended upon the Capitol last week, adding that they’ve had protesters come quite often over the last few years.
But he did have to act when some of those protesters became rowdy in the balcony, chanting “Fascists! Fascists!”
Sexton gave them multiple warnings that day before finally removing them. Troopers also had to clear away protesters blocking entrances or exits just to get members to the elevator or get them back to the House floor. He did however confirm that the Capitol will remain open to the public despite last week’s incident.
Putting aside the expulsion upheaval, which representatives will now have to vote on, the speaker explained there’s quite a lot of work to be done and the Legislature is in no hurry to get out of town.
“There’s still a lot of stuff to do,” said Sexton. “We have about four or five weeks to go. We’re not going to rush it. If we need to stay longer, then we can stay longer.”
“There’s things that we can do immediately and there’s things that we can continue to do over time,” Sexton said.
