Fmr. Sen. Doug Jones on the Tennessee 3 and how GOP supermajorities stifle dissent

The expulsion of two young Black Tennessee lawmakers this week is an example of how Trumpism has become a blueprint for lawmakers to stifle dissent and silence critics – including duly-elected lawmakers. The Republican supermajority in the state legislature made it easy for the GOP to push through an extreme and disproportionate form of punishment against two of the Tennessee Three. “I think Democrats just abandoned us down here and we were left to fend for ourselves,” says the former Democratic senator from Alabama Doug Jones, who says there’s a connection between the Democrats ceding ground in the South to the rise of Republican supermajorities in the region in the 2010s. And the result of those supermajorities is that Democrats are underrepresented in their state legislatures. “Democrats still get roughly 40% of the vote throughout the south, but yet our representation is way below that.”April 8, 2023