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Politically Motivated Arrests Actually Do Happen ... to Democrats

By Jen Maravegias | Politics | April 4, 2023 |

By Jen Maravegias | Politics | April 4, 2023 |


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The GOP and its supporters love to proclaim everything they don’t like as either “woke” or “politically motivated.” By now, we all know that when they say “woke” they mean “anti-racist” and “politically motivated” means they just don’t want to be held responsible or accountable for rules and laws that are broken by members of their party.

If you want to see actual politically motivated legal actions check out what happened in Tennessee yesterday.

More than a thousand Nashville area students walked out of classes and marched on the state capital demanding stronger gun control laws in the wake of last week’s school shooting. They were joined by students and faculty from Vanderbilt University as well as State Representatives Justin Jones, Gloria Johnson, and Justin J. Pearson. All of them were removed from their committee assignments and now there’s a resolution on the floor to expel them from their seats.

All of that goes against Article 2, section 27 of Tennessee’s state constitution so good luck with that Tennessee GOP:

Any member of either House of the General Assembly shall have liberty to dissent from and protest against, any act or resolve which he may think injurious to the public or to any individual, and to have the reasons for his dissent entered on the journals.

In addition to those politically motivated actions, Rep. Justin Jones has documented a couple of cases of aggressively disrespectful behavior from his fellow Representatives during the peaceful protest.

Even after all of this Jones, Johnson, and Pearson are still encouraging students and their constituents to call and peacefully assemble to voice their objections to Tennessee’s lax gun control laws. That’s leadership.

Likewise, at a protest in Florida yesterday, over that state’s new 6-week abortion ban, the chair of Florida’s Democratic Party, Nikki Fried, and the Senate minority leader, Sen. Lauren Book, were both arrested

During the protest the two lawmakers were part of a small group sitting on the ground, in front of Tallahassee City Hall, holding hands and singing songs. It’s entirely possible that Florida has decided the Bill Of Rights no longer applies because that’s the way DeSantis seems to be going these days. But I’m pretty sure you can’t get out of the First Amendment’s right of the people peaceably to assemble THAT easily, even in Florida.

There are a lot of ways Twitter has broken society and is now totally broken itself. But, when Elon and his Dogeboys finally tank it, I am going to miss that platform for its ability to aggregate news stories like these.

What’s the lesson here? Do not despair. Keep fighting, and keep making your voices heard. Make good trouble where ever you are.