‘You have imprisoned our democracy’: inside Republicans’ domination of Tennessee

The murder of six people at a church school in an affluent, largely white enclave of Tennessee’s largest city one year ago sparked a mass protest movement for gun control by Nashville parents. The Republican-dominated legislature met that movement with some spending on school police officers as a gesture to the outrage, a law shielding gun and ammunition manufacturers from liability as a gesture to Tennessee’s powerful gun lobby and the expulsion of the two Black lawmakers as a gesture of warning to people causing too much trouble.

Other antidemocratic displays over the last year would be just as outrageous, if people outside of Tennessee were still paying attention.

The temporary expulsion of Representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones was only the first cautionary tale in a saga of retribution that has continued apace, activists say. Conservative domination – maintained by gerrymandered districts, disenfranchised voters and an increasing sense of political despair – insulates Tennessee Republicans from political consequences for unpopular decisions. Challenged in public by increasing activism on the left and apocalyptic rhetoric on the right, Tennessee Republicans stopped just chipping away at democratic norms and began hammering full-on like coalminers on Rocky Top.

Republicans rode the Tea Party wave of 2010 into a dominant position in Tennessee. Bit by bit over the last 14 years, they have turned Tennessee into a one-party state. About 37% of Tennesseans vote for Democrats in national elections, but Republicans hold a 75-24 supermajority in the Tennessee house and a 27-6 supermajority in the state senate – enough to override a veto and propose constitutional changes. Tennessee fails Princeton’s report card on