Memphis-area commissioners vote to reinstate Justin Pearson to the Tennessee House after he was expelled by Republicans over a gun control protest

Pearson, along with state Rep. Justin Jones, had been expelled from the legislature for what Republicans said was a breach in decorum on the floor.

• The Shelby County Commission voted to reinstate Justin Pearson back to his seat in the Tennessee House.
• Pearson was removed from the body alongside newly-reinstated state Rep. Justin Jones over a gun reform protest.
• Republican Gov. Bill Lee on Monday signed an executive order strengthening background checks.

The remaining Black Democrat who had been expelled from the Tennessee House of Representatives last week after leading a protest for gun reform has been reinstated to his position.

On Wednesday, the Shelby County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously former state Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis back to the seat that he last occupied just last Thursday. He needed a simple majority of the 13-member commission, at a minimum, to regain his legislative seat.

Ahead of the vote, many Memphis residents protested Pearson's expulsion on Wednesday by marching from the National Civil Rights Museum — which includes the Lorraine Motel, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in 1968 — to the building where the commissioners conduct their meetings.

Pearson, along with state Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville, had been expelled from the legislature for what Republicans said was a breach in decorum in leading an unauthorized gun control push on the House floor.

Jones on Monday was reinstated to to his position by the Nashville-area Metropolitan Council.

With the move by the Shelby commissioners, Pearson will hold his old seat until a special election can be held later this year. Jones will also have to run in a separate special election.

Less than a month after a mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville motivated a wave of citizens to gather at the state Capitol to protest the state's lax gun laws, Pearson, Jones, and state Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville became the faces of efforts to enact increased firearms restrictions in the conservative state.

But while Pearson and Jones are Black, Johnson — who is white — was narrowly spared from expulsion from the legislature. The action prompted a huge outcry from many citizens across the county, and internationally, who felt as though the two lawmakers were not only silenced but were treated differently because they are Black.

Tennessee Republicans have denied that Pearson and Johnson were removed from the body because of race.

But Johnson, who is white, told CNN last week that it was "pretty clear" why she was able to remain in the House, while her two colleagues were removed.

"I'm a 60-year-old white woman and they are two, young Black men," she said. "In listening to the questions and the way they were questioned and the way they were talked to, I was talked down to as a woman, mansplained to, but it was completely different from the questioning that they got."

And on Tuesday, Johnson also told the network that she hears racist statements "all the time" as a legislator.

The legislators have received strong support from President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other top Democratic leaders.

Harris traveled to Nashville last Friday and met with the three lawmakers; she also made a forceful push for more firearms regulations in Tennessee, including background checks, red flag laws, and an assault weapons ban.

"Let's not fall for the false choice: either you're in favor of the Second Amendment or you want reasonable gun safety laws," she said. "We can and should do both."

Republican Gov. Bill Lee on Monday signed an executive order strengthening gun background checks in the Volunteer State, while calling on the legislature to pass an order of protection law that would keep firearms out of the hands of potentially dangerous individuals.