House GOP bill would block local governments from returning expelled lawmakers to office

A Tennessee lawmaker wants to block local governments from reappointing legislators expelled by the General Assembly, the latest in a string of legislation that attempts to wrest authority from local bodies over local decisions.

Rep. Johnny Garrett, R-Goodlettsville, filed House Bill 2716, to prevent a state lawmaker expelled for "disorderly behavior" from being tapped to fill their own vacant seat. Under the Tennessee Constitution and state law, local governing bodies like the Metro Council in Nashville of the Shelby County Commission have full latitude to fill a legislative vacancy as they see fit, as long as the person is an eligible voter in the district that is being filled.

Garrett's bill is narrowly tailored in an apparent response to the historic 2023 expulsions of Reps. Justin Jones, D-Nashville, and Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, who were reappointed to their vacated seats by the Nashville Metro Council and Shelby County Commission last year before they were overwhelmingly reelected by their constituents in special elections.

Garrett declined to comment on the bill this week, since it had not yet been presented in committee.

House Republicans expelled the freshman Democrats after the pair broke House decorum rules and mounted a brief gun reform protest alongside Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, on the chamber floor days after the worst school shooting in Tennessee history.

The expulsion of the two youngest Black lawmakers in the state, along with the narrow political survival of their white colleague, sparked widespread protests and spotlighted internal legislative tensions that continue to reverberate into the 2024 session.

Jones on Wednesday called Garrett's bill "petty politics, grandstanding and a distraction from serious issues."

"I would encourage Rep. Garrett to move forward and file legislation that would address the reason why we protested in the first place: common sense gun legislation," Jones said in an interview.

Pearson castigated Garrett's effort and said if voters in a district are convinced an expelled lawmaker shouldn't serve them, they can choose not to reelect the lawmaker.

"But why is a white man — from a different county, a different place, who has no understanding or no idea about the districts where I come from or Rep. Jones comes from — supposed to be the best decider about who should serve? That's white supremacy," Pearson said. "That's the belief that you hold all of the knowledge and information rather than the people who are also the representatives of their constituencies who sent us back here."

During the expulsion proceedings in April, Garrett led the House Republicans' arguments against Jones, at one point telling his colleagues that "the rules are here for order."

With HB 2716, Garrett now seeks to change the rules of authority for local legislative bodies that were initially set out in Article II of the Tennessee Constitution. The distribution of powers section outlines that local legislative bodies have the sole authority to fill vacancies.

The state Constitution and state law only outline one requirement for appointed legislators, requiring that appointed successors must be a qualified voter in the district.

Explicit changes to the Tennessee Constitution must go through a constitutional amendment process, a three-year procedure that Rep. Brian Richey, R-Maryville, is also pursuing in response to last year's expulsions.

Richey's House Joint Resolution 706 would prohibit an expelled lawmaker from qualifying for office for four years following the expulsion. The resolution passed out of its first subcommittee this week. But Tennessee's constitutional amendment system requires two rounds of legislative approval — with an election in between — before it goes to a popular vote during a gubernatorial election year.

That means Richey's amendment must pass again during a new General Assembly starting in 2025, and the soonest it could go before voters would be in November 2026.

"It's not the General Assembly making the decision of whether an individual could come back in, it would be the 7 million Tennesseans having the opportunity to go to the ballot vote," Richey said.

Garrett is instead attempting to amend state law to add these new qualification requirements. Garrett declined through a spokesperson to respond to a question from The Tennessean regarding the constitutionality of adding limits to a power outlined in the state constitution.

At-large Metro Council member Delishia Porterfield, who spearheaded Jones' reappointment, sharply criticized Garrett's bill as an attempt to further restrict local governments that is "taking up space" over other pressing issues in Tennessee.

"We can't allow our state legislators to circumvent the will of the people," Porterfield said.

If passed into law, Garrett's bill would almost certainly spark a legal challenge in the latest round of fights over local control issues, particularly with Nashville. Garrett in 2023 sponsored multiple bills to slash the Nashville council size and overhaul both the airport and sports authority boards. All face legal challenges.

Nashville has so far been successful in its legal efforts. A three-judge panel temporarily blocked the council bill pending full arguments, while the state is appealing a panel ruling that knocked down the airport authority board. Days before Christmas, a three-judge panel temporarily blocked a law that would have replaced six of 13 members of the locally appointed Metro Nashville Sports Authority with state members.

"Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues have not learned from last session," Jones said. "They put a national and international spotlight on our state because of their hubris in taking the unprecedented step of expelling duly elected representatives. Rather than move forward to go about the business of what our constitutents sent us up here to do, they want to relitigate something that has passed."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Three: Bill would block return of expelled lawmakers