Lessons Tennessee Three Rep. Justin J. Pearson Learned From His Expulsion and Return

Rep. Justin J. Pearson, D-Memphis, remains hopeful about the Volunteer State even as he calls the Tennessee General Assembly the most toxic work environment he has ever experienced in his life.

Pearson, 29, was sent by District 86 voters to the legislature in the January 2023 election following the death of incumbent Rep. Barbara Cooper.

Less than three months later, a majority of his Republican colleagues in the GOP-dominated House voted to expel him, the representative said. Justin JonesD-Nashville and Rep. Gloria Johnson, Democrat of Knoxville, known collectively as the Tennessee Three, for protesting in the back of the chamber to demand gun safety reform. Johnson barely survived the vote, but the two Justins were voted out.

Days later, the county commissions returned them and both won general and special elections in the following months.

The Tennessee Three were invited to the White House and to appear on national news talk shows.

Pearson seeks common ground, not compromise

Pearson is my guest on this episode (No. 408) of the Tennessee Voices video podcast, a show I’ve hosted since March 2020 that has produced over 400 interviews with leaders, thinkers, and doers, discussing relevant topics and modeling civil discourse. .

We talked about how that expulsion experience marked him and what he has learned.

Pearson spoke about how he is no longer looking for a compromise, but rather is willing to find common ground. He added that he is dedicated to a philosophy of “justice with love” that embraces a Tennessee that welcomes people of diverse backgrounds.

He talked about why he told his Republican colleagues that “hurt people hurt people” when they worked to oust him.

The lawmaker also spoke about his pre-term experience as an environmental justice activist, fighting the Byhalia pipeline and criticizing the Tennessee Valley Authority for its energy policies.

He recently wrote guest opinion columns for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee.

Advice for young people: politics is not a short-term activity

Pearson told me he hopes “resisters” of dominant state authority never leave Tennessee.

His advice to young people looking to enter politics is that the job is long-term, beyond a single election cycle.

Watch the video above to see our full conversation, and you can watch previous episodes of the Tennessee Voices show here.

David Plazas is the opinion and engagement director of the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is a member of The Tennessean’s editorial board. He hosts the Tennessee Voices videocast and curates the Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at [email protected] or find him at X on @davidplazas.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee Three: Justin J. Pearson learned from expulsion and return.