Tenn. House speaker suspends Democrats from committees after protest over redistricting map

Speaker Cameron Sexton accused Democratic lawmakers of violating House decorum rules during protests over a controversial congressional redistricting plan.

Tennessee Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton has removed all 24 House Democrats from every standing committee and subcommittee, retaliating against the caucus for protesting a special session redistricting vote that split the state’s only majority-Black, majority-Democrat congressional district in Memphis into pieces.

As theGrio previously reported, Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis is a congressional candidate who would be directly affected by the new map targeting his district, and Black legislators across the South have been leading resistance efforts as Republican legislatures rush to redraw maps following the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act. The Tennessee Lookout reported that the Tennessee Democrats suspended from committees include Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, both of whom were previously expelled from the same chamber in 2023 before being reinstated following national outcry.

Sexton sent a letter Tuesday to House Minority Leader Karen Camper citing what he described as decorum violations, including Democrats locking arms at the front of the chamber as Republicans voted to pass the new congressional map, distributing earplugs to members, and using prohibited props and noisemakers. Sexton provided no proof that protesters in the gallery received payments, despite claiming in the letter that they had been paid.

The map Sexton’s party passed splits the former 9th Congressional District around Memphis into two seats and dilutes them with rural and suburban white counties stretching into Maury and Williamson counties in Middle Tennessee. The Republican sponsors said directly that the map was redrawn to “maximize partisan advantage.”

At President Trump’s request, Gov. Bill Lee called the special session after the Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, with the goal of giving Republicans a 9-0 sweep of Tennessee’s congressional seats. The decision to have Tennessee Democrats suspended from committees is the latest in a series of moves by the GOP supermajority to consolidate control.

Camper pushed back hard. “This is about power and control,” she said. “When Democrats stand up, speak out and expose what is happening in this chamber, the response from this supermajority is retaliation.” She also noted that Republicans allowed exactly 47 minutes of debate per side, calling it a “clear nod” to the 47th president, and that the total debate structure ran 54 minutes, which she described as a deliberate reference to 1954, the year of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

The suspension will last through the end of the year. Camper said the punishment still stung despite her public defiance. “It felt like being stabbed in the back, then having the knife pushed in deeper and turned to finish the job,” she said.