This weekend’s long-planned GOP donor retreat in Nashville will draw former President Donald Trump and potential 2024 contenders, but many state Republicans are concerned that the recent expulsion of two Black Democrats from the Tennessee Legislature may overshadow the event.
Little over a week after Tennessee Republicans took the extraordinary action of expelling Reps. Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson for organizing demonstrations against gun murder on the chamber floor, prominent GOP candidates and possible funders are now arriving. Rep. Gloria Johnson, a third Democrat and a white woman, was spared from being expelled despite widespread claims of racism, drawing attention to the GOP-controlled House.
The consequences of those votes come at a time when the national GOP is already grappling with how to strike a balance between issues and policies that are well-liked by the conservative base — support for restrictions on abortion and opposition to new gun restrictions — but incredibly unappealing to swing voters in crucial battleground states that will have a significant impact on the elections of next year.
“I don’t see how last week’s events in the state Capitol will benefit the Republican Party in any way. Eddie Mannis, a former Republican state representative from Tennessee, stated in an interview that it wasn’t even a little sum.
After serving just one term, Mannis, who in 2021 became the first openly homosexual Republican lawmaker in the state, quit his post earlier this year, claiming that Republican leaders in the chamber had ignored his attempts to steer the party away from its obsessive focus on social issues.
He told NBC News, “There’s no question in my mind that these things drive the national party off course.
The overwhelming national exposure Tennessee House Republicans received as a result of their choice to expel Jones and Pearson mainly took them off guard. Many Republican state representatives were heard griping passionately in leaked recordings from a recent meeting about how Democrats had depicted their conduct as racist.
In response to inquiries from NBC News, a representative for the Tennessee state House GOP caucus remained silent.
Republicans in Tennessee who are active in the party both locally and nationally are now attempting to determine how to proceed in a way that would assist deflect criticism leveled at party officials.
Oscar Brock, a Tennessee Republican National Committee member, said, “We have to remind ourselves that perception does matter — and if it was easy enough to perceive, for an outsider, that there were racial implications, we’re just going to have to understand that going forward we cannot act in a way that might be perceived as racially insensitive or racist entirely.”
One of the negative effects of having a supermajority, according to him, is that you tend to believe you don’t need to pay attention to the minority party.
Several GOP leaders and activists who talked with NBC News praised the dismissals, saying the only error was not also dismissing Johnson.
Rick Williams, a local GOP activist who co-chaired Trump’s two previous presidential campaigns in a suburban Nashville county, said: “The only thing I was disappointed about was that they didn’t also expel Gloria Johnson, only because now it gives the narrative… that somehow this is racist, and it’s not racist.”
Following a shooting at a Nashville school that left six people dead, including three 9-year-old children, Jones, Pearson, and Johnson led supporters in shouts demanding gun control. The three lawmakers violated House rules by speaking before they were given permission to do so, with Jones and Pearson using a bullhorn to address the crowd.
Although John Stanbery, a Tennessee GOP executive committee member, equated the “Tennessee Three’s” behavior to that of the rioters on January 6, he conceded that the decision to deport them was “politically, not a good move.”
Republicans in Tennessee are wringing their hands about the hasty and harsh choice to deal with those activities by expelling the legislators rather than doing something less drastic but effective, like voting to condemn them.
“[Jones and Pearson] received no punishment at all from any of this. In the end, they had tens of thousands more Twitter followers and are likely to have raised more money, according to Jim Garrett, the former chairman of the Davidson County GOP, the local Republican Party organization in the Nashville region.
Following local council and commission votes this week, Jones and Pearson were both reinstated.
Brock continued, “Republicans lost out overall.” What did we achieve? We received a great deal of bad press.
This week, Tennessee Republicans again made news when GOP Gov. Bill Lee urged the state House to adopt the equivalent of a red flag gun law. However, less than 48 hours later, the Legislature abruptly decided to adjourn until next week after discussing the state budget, making it almost certain that a gun bill won’t reach the governor’s desk any time soon.
These moves will probably put pressure on Republicans for 2024 this weekend.
Neither Trump nor former Vice President Mike Pence, who has not yet disclosed his plans for 2024, have made any public statements regarding the expulsion of Jones and Pearson. NBC News questioned Trump and Pence’s spokespeople, but they did not answer.
Brock claimed that none of the ramifications of the action helped the Republican Party. “And now you’ll have to… This weekend, contributors and candidates will be questioned about this, which will make them feel awkward.