The Tennessee Bullhorn Isn’t Democracy Biden and Schumer now say it’s heroic to disrupt a legislative proceeding.
Democrats are free to argue that the Tennessee House went too far this month when it expelled Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson for disrupting the chamber’s business. Yet it’s astounding to see prominent Democrats now justifying and outright endorsing the pair’s tactic of derailing legislative proceedings with a bullhorn to demand gun control.
Next week President Biden will roll out the White House red carpet for Messrs. Jones and Pearson, along with Rep. Gloria Johnson, who participated in the disruption to a lesser extent, and who was narrowly spared expulsion.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed at a Wednesday briefing that the three state lawmakers were punished “for peacefully protesting in support of stronger gun-safety laws.” She added that Mr. Biden phoned them and “thanked them for their leadership,” as well as for defending “democratic values.”
The response from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is even more unbelievable. Last week Mr. Schumer and four other Democratic Senators sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking him to investigate whether the Tennessee House violated the U.S. Constitution or federal law. These Democrats also go far beyond protesting the expulsions. They argue that the ruckus caused by Messrs. Jones and Pearson was following in the tradition of the civil-rights movement.
“By courageously participating in nonviolent demonstrations, they challenged procedural rules governing decorum and good behavior,” the Senators write. “We believe the repeated and preventable slaughter of our children should frustrate and disrupt decorum because this horrifying pattern must never be accepted as business as usual.”
Think about it: The Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate is publicly arguing that if partisans feel passionately enough about a policy issue, they are justified in disrupting legislative proceedings by force. Wait until GOP Sen. Josh Hawley hears this news. Would Mr. Schumer be so blasé if a trio of Republican Senators with a bullhorn hijacked his daily agenda to protest abortion or another policy they consider immoral?
By expelling Messrs. Jones and Pearson, the Tennessee House made them into folk heroes on the left. Both were quickly reappointed to their seats on an interim basis. Special elections are being called to fill the seats permanently, and Messrs. Jones and Pearson might well resoundingly win the races to replace themselves. This possibility should have given pause to Tennessee Republicans when they considered the expulsions in the first place.
Having won the media battle, Democrats now want to twist the event into a case of phony martyrdom. Democrats have spent years presenting themselves as democracy’s last defense. But when two of their own grab a bullhorn and bring the people’s business to a halt, suddenly it’s heroic, if the cause is right. The problem is, someone will always believe the cause is right.
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