Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said Friday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that the expulsion of two Black legislators from the Tennessee House of Representatives was part of a larger Republican-led “fascist takeover of our statehouses.”
Cooper said, “I wanted to ask you about what we saw in Tennessee last night. Three legislators who took part in a protest on the floor of the statehouse, not with protesters, but on the actual floor. They had a bullhorn which clearly a violation of the rules of decorum. Not something legislators normally do, or would, you know, make sense to have legislators do for good order of actually hearing people’s arguments? That being said, the punishment for two of them was to be expelled. How do you see that? Do you think that really was about the rules of decorum or something else?”
Ocasio-Cortez said, “We know that that it absolutely was not.”
She continued, “This is about the fascist takeover of our state houses that Republicans have invested in in the last several decades.”
Ocasio-Cortez added, “This is about a naked abuse of power. This is about disenfranchising Democrats in states where there is extreme levels of voter suppression, and it was also about racism. It was deeply about racism, from the comments the absolutely disrespectful and denigrating comments made to the Black members of the Tennessee House to the fact that they that these Republicans voted to expel, after charging three of these members, they expelled two Black male legislators, and they voted to acquit in a way, or they voted to not expel the sole white woman, Rep. Gloria Johnson, who has been a phenomenal ally.”
She concluded, “There is no defense, and we have not heard any rational explanation for why that is, and it’s so important that we recognize this for what it is and that we see this for what it is because if we do not, then we will not take the proper actions to stop it.”
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