Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre announced on Wednesday that President Biden would be meeting with the three embattled Tennessee Democrat lawmakers who were up for expulsion after their roles in a gun control protest at the capitol. Two of the lawmakers were expelled from the Tennessee House but were reinstated shortly after a national outcry for their return to the house, citing racial motives.
“I’m pleased to share that the president looks forward to welcoming Tennessee state Representative Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson to the White House this coming Monday,” said Pierre during Wednesday’s white house press briefing. She stated that the three lawmakers had already been in communication with President Biden, where he thanked them for their leadership, their bravery, and their work to combat the sale of assault rifles.
The three Democrat lawmakers, Justin Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson, have become well-known figures seemingly overnight after they joined a protest on the capitol following a mass shooting at Covenant School, which took the lives of three 9-year-old children and three adults. Their actions during the protest, which included disrupting House proceedings via chanting with a megaphone at the lectern, were defiant of House rules.
Lawmakers voted to expel all three lawmakers shortly after the incident, with two of the lawmakers, both black, being successfully expelled. Gloria Johnson narrowly avoided expulsion by one vote. Public outcry and pressure from the white house has led to an about-face in the majority GOP Tennessee House, and the two previously expelled lawmakers have been returned to duty, but tensions still remain high.
Representative Jones and Pearson have continued their campaign for stricter gun control laws, even going as far as to bring an infant-sized coffin to the capitol on Wednesday.
Critics of the Biden Administration have commented that the White House has made multiple missteps in the handling of the Covenant School shooting, including a lack of a visit from the President; and the invitation extended to lawmakers to the White House but a notable absence of an invitation to victims of the school shooting.
