Tennessee Republicans Removing Black Lawmakers Draws Raphael Warnock's Ire

• Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock has strongly criticized the decision by Republicans in Tennessee to expel two Black Democratic lawmakers from the state House.
• Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were expelled on Thursday after they spoke out of turn to support a youth-led protest for gun control following the deadly school shooting in Nashville.
• Warnock said in an interview on Friday that Tennessee Republicans "have convinced themselves that the people's House is their house."

Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock has strongly criticized the decision by Republicans in Tennessee to expel two Black Democratic lawmakers from the state House.

Warnock, the junior senator from Georgia, told MSNBC in an interview on Friday that those who voted in favor of the expulsion "have convinced themselves that the people's House is their house" and appeared to link the move to racism.

His comments come after Representatives Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were both expelled from serving in the GOP-controlled chamber on Thursday - a week after they spoke out of turn to support a youth-led protest for gun control, which was held following the recent deadly shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville.

Pearson, Jones, and Democratic Representative Gloria Johnson breached decorum in the chamber by speaking out of turn to support the protest. An effort to expel Johnson, who is white, failed by one vote

Warnock noted that the reason for the protest was the deadly school shooting, which resulted in the deaths of six people, including three children.

"And in the wake of that, American citizens stood up protesting and calling on their legislators to respond," the senator said. "And rather than the legislature responding to the violence, they decided to silence members of their own body who were protesting non-violently in response to the violence that started all of this in the first place.

"All of us should be deeply concerned, even if we have differences of opinion about the gun safety issue and what the best route is," he said. "This is, on its head, undemocratic, un-American, unacceptable and I think that at the end of the day, the people are gonna get their voice back in their House."

Warnock also discussed racism during the interview. The Tennessee Republican lawmakers have been accused of having a racial motivation following the expulsion of Representatives Jones and Pearson.

"Sadly, we are living through a moment in our country where at least in parts of our politics and parts of our country there are those who feel that racism is not only acceptable, it's fashionable," Warnock said on Friday.

Representative Jones told reporters that being spared expulsion while her Black colleagues were not "may have to do with the color of our skin."

Discussing the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Warnock said that part of what King did was make racism "unpopular and socially unacceptable."

"But we have seen over the last six years the re-emergence of a kind of unabashed, unembarrassed bigotry that should be deeply shocking to the conscience of anybody who believes in what's right, who believes in what's true and we see this not only in this Tennessee legislature, but we see it in other places as well," the senator said.

Warnock went on to say that the Tennessee House is "deeply gerrymandered" and said that Republicans "have convinced themselves that the people's House is their house and so they have effectively evicted the people out of their own House.

"They haven't simply expelled these legislators. They have evicted the people of their districts out of their own House. And I think the people see this. They're witnessing it. It has sent shockwaves across that state - all across our country - and the people are coming back to get their democracy," Warnock added.

Warnock went on: "Thank God for these young legislators. We have to stand with them and keep bending that arc toward justice and closer to our ideals. If we can't save our own children, what are we doing?

"We have to stand up in this moment, protect them, and protect the democracy at the same time," the Democrat said.

Newsweek has reached out via email to Tennessee Republican Party political director Tyler Burns for comment.