--:-- Aisha Roscoe: I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is The Sunday Story. Well, another 4th of July is in the rear view, and this year, of course, it sets the stage for one of the most contentious presidential elections in recent history. But today we want to turn to what's happening on the state level, because that's actually where a lot of stuff gets decided, like laws about guns, abortion, what's taught in schools.
--:-- Aisha Roscoe: One state that was in the news a lot last year was Tennessee. You might remember a big story about two Black state lawmakers who protested at the statehouse and then faced expulsion. That story kind of came and went in the national headlines. But in Tennessee, it turns out it was just the beginning. Things got way more interesting after that.
--:-- Aisha Roscoe: And one reporter, Maribah Knight, with WPLN News in Nashville, followed it all. NPR's Embedded Podcast teamed up with Meribah on a new series called Supermajority, and today we're going to play you the first episode.
--:-- Aisha Roscoe: In Tennessee, the Republican Party controls the House, the Senate, and the governorship, giving them full political power. This new series tells the story of three conservative white mothers who pushed back against their own party after a deadly school shooting.
--:-- Aisha Roscoe: And a heads up, this episode contains coarse language and discussions of gun violence.
--:-- Aisha Roscoe: Okay, here's Meribah.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Sarah Shoup Newman had been avoiding crowds, so she spent much of the week hunkered down at home, an upscale red brick house tucked away in a quiet cul-de-sac right on the edge of Nashville.
--:-- Maribah Knight: She'd been trying to comfort her two boys, Noah, five years old, and Judah, who's two. But her mind was all over the place.
--:-- Sarah Shoup Newman: I just found myself saying, how did this happen? How did we get here?
--:-- Maribah Knight: It was late spring of 2023, and she'd been glued to her phone most nights, watching and reading the news after the boys went to sleep.
--:-- Maribah Knight: There had been a mass shooting days before. It was deeply personal to Sarah. The shooting had happened at her son Noah's school, a small private Christian school in Nashville called the Covenant School.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Someone armed with two assault-style rifles and a pistol walked the hallways and unloaded 152 rounds, killing three nine-year-old children and three adults, including the school's headmaster.
--:-- Sarah Shoup Newman: Noah was okay. His preschool class hadn't met that day.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But Sarah was reeling.
--:-- Sarah Shoup Newman: I have a hard time even describing what it was like to live that week. I mean, I did not feel like I was in my own body. Like, it just, you feel like you are detached and looking in on someone else's life.
--:-- Maribah Knight: She began dashing off notes to herself on her iPhone.
--:-- Sarah Shoup Newman: I grew up in rural Ohio, where guns were a part of my upbringing, she wrote. I've shot an AR-15. I know it's power. My dad used to be a member of the NRA.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Then she took to Twitter, calling out her congressman, Republican Andy Ogles.
--:-- Sarah Shoup Newman: Tell the Covenant community your action plan. My five-year-old is waiting, she wrote to him.
--:-- Maribah Knight: No reply.
--:-- Sarah Shoup Newman: I probably voted for most of these people. What do they think is going to fix this?
--:-- Maribah Knight: Other people were feeling the same way. The state capitol had erupted in protests, more than a thousand people marching, flooding the halls of the capitol and into the viewing areas, calling for gun control.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And then three Democratic lawmakers took to the Republican-dominated House floor. You might have heard of them, the so-called Tennessee Three.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Seeing on the news, I saw pictures of Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson had walked up to the well.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And one of them was holding a picture that a kid had drawn. One of them had their bullhorn or megaphone.
--:-- Sarah Shoup Newman: Sarah learned, along with the rest of the world, that these Democrats would face expulsion hearings. That they might actually be kicked out of the legislature for calling for gun control.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So why are we only singling out the three people that I saw speak up for the kids that were slaughtered and the teachers slaughtered at my school?
--:-- Maribah Knight: It was all so unsettling to Sarah. She'd never heard of anyone getting expelled from the legislature.
--:-- Sarah Shoup Newman: In fact, it had only happened three times since the Civil War.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I mean, I was really upset, so I wanted to go to the expulsion hearings.
--:-- Maribah Knight: At 37 years old, Sarah had never been to her state capitol.
--:-- Sarah Shoup Newman: She'd never been very politically active.
--:-- Maribah Knight: She'd grown up conservative, Republican, and largely still considered herself a Republican.
--:-- Sarah Shoup Newman: But she decided that she needed to watch in person what was about to happen to these three Democratic lawmakers.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I had decided then, like, if they're going to do this, I'm going to wear a Covenant shirt and I'm going to have a Covenant mom sign.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But if they're really going to expel these people over this, then they're going to do it knowing somebody from Covenant is watching them and seeing them do this.
--:-- Maribah Knight: That morning, Sarah, who's petite with big round glasses, dressed in jeans, a red Covenant shirt and a Covenant baseball hat, and she headed to the Tennessee state capitol.
--:-- Maribah Knight: It was raining, and as she walked up the hill, she said she heard a gun rights supporter yell Nazi at her.
--:-- Sarah Shoup Newman: These people think I'm their enemy.
--:-- Maribah Knight: She kept walking.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Mr. Sergeant of Arms, invite the members into the chamber and close the doors.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I hereby declare the House of Representatives of the 113th General Assembly now in session.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Sitting in the gallery, she looked down on the House chamber.
--:-- Maribah Knight: As one by one, the three Democratic lawmakers are questioned by the Republicans who want to expel them.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Representative Farmer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
--:-- Andrew Farmer: Like Andrew Farmer, who questioned Justin Pearson, a 28-year-old black lawmaker from Memphis.
--:-- Maribah Knight: You know, as I'm listening, I'm thinking to myself, you don't understand. You don't truly understand why you're standing there today.
--:-- Justin Pearson: Pearson stood at the lectern, ramrod straight, wearing a dashiki under his suit jacket, carefully listening to Farmer.
--:-- Justin Pearson: Just because you don't get your way, you can't come to the well, bring your friends, and throw a temper tantrum with an adolescent bullhorn.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The way that they were spoken to was incredibly disrespectful.
--:-- Maribah Knight: That's why you're standing there, because of that temper tantrum that day.
--:-- Maribah Knight: For that yearning to have attention.
--:-- Maribah Knight: That's what you wanted.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But you're getting it now.
--:-- Maribah Knight: — To see that that's what they will sit on the House floor and say and treat in front of people with media and everyone around, that they don't care, like they think that's acceptable behavior.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Justin Jones and Justin Pearson were both expelled that day.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Gloria Johnson, the white lawmaker, kept her seat by a single vote.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The ousting was all over the news and talk shows.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Two House lawmakers expelled the compelling drama playing out live.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And for more than a brief moment, it caught the attention of the entire nation.
--:-- Maribah Knight: This morning, growing outrage after Tennessee's Republican-controlled House voted to...
--:-- Maribah Knight: The Republican supermajority vowing to punish them.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton even linked their peaceful...
--:-- Maribah Knight: One of those lawmakers who's now ousted brought up white supremacy.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Gloria, why do you feel like there was a difference in the outcome between you and your colleague?
--:-- Maribah Knight: It might have to do with the color of our skin.
--:-- Maribah Knight: We're a Republican, a foundation of who we are, or we can convert.
--:-- Maribah Knight: There's never been a more important time for us to be unified.
--:-- Maribah Knight: There are 75 times.
--:-- Maribah Knight: God, we were called, we brought the racism into it.
--:-- Maribah Knight: That's state representative Jason Zachary.
--:-- Maribah Knight: A few days after the expulsions and the backlash, a recording of Tennessee's House Republican caucus meeting was leaked to a local liberal news outlet, the Tennessee Holler.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The audio was apparently edited and doesn't capture the voices of everyone in the meeting.
--:-- Maribah Knight: We are fighting for the republic of our country right now.
--:-- Maribah Knight: We are fighting for the republic of our country right now, Representative Scott Sipicki tells the group.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And the world is staring at us.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Are we going to stand on our ground?
--:-- Maribah Knight: You've got to do what's right.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Even if you think it might be wrong, you've got to do what's right.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Sipicki and others in the meeting declined to comment on the audio after it was leaked.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But they didn't deny the authenticity of the tape.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The Tennessee GOP released a statement saying it had no comment about private conversations.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And then, a few months after the expulsions of Pearson and Jones and the leaked audio, an article began to circulate.
--:-- Maribah Knight: It was called, Is Tennessee a Democracy?
--:-- Maribah Knight: I sent it to people.
--:-- Maribah Knight: People sent it to me.
--:-- Maribah Knight: It was by the journalist and historian Ann Applebaum.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Ann Applebaum, in your latest article for The Atlantic, entitled, Is Tennessee a Democracy?
--:-- Maribah Knight: You discuss what happens after one party wins everything but still wants more.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And it created such buzz that she went on cable news to talk about it.
--:-- Maribah Knight: One of the effects of having a supermajority, which the Republicans have in Tennessee, is that they don't really have to listen to anybody.
--:-- Maribah Knight: They don't have to listen to the public.
--:-- Maribah Knight: They don't have to listen to the Democrats.
--:-- Maribah Knight: They don't have to listen to political opponents.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Part of why the piece struck me so is because Applebaum has spent her entire career writing about authoritarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And what's happening in Tennessee, she says, it reminds her of those places.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And of course, you know, I picked on Tennessee, but there are a number of other states I could have been to where you have almost the same phenomenon.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The phenomenon she's talking about are these politically lopsided legislatures.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Like Tennessee, there are now 29 states, more than ever before, with legislative supermajorities.
--:-- Maribah Knight: 20 of those are Republican.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And to clarify, having a supermajority generally means one party has a steep advantage over the other.
--:-- Maribah Knight: In Tennessee, Republicans outnumber Democrats in the legislature, three to one.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And as the world witnessed in the spring of 2023, they seem to be wielding their power.
--:-- Maribah Knight: mightily.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Sarah Shoup Newman didn't know what to make of it.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I just felt like they were trying to silence the people speaking out.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And I get that there's decorum and there's rules and all of this.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But the attitudes of the legislatures, it just seemed like there was very much this environment of we can say and do what we please really just outraged me.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Sarah was seeing, for the first time, how her Republican-dominated state legislature was acting.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And she didn't like it.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But could a regular citizen like Sarah, someone worried about the future of her party and her state, actually push back?
--:-- Maribah Knight: Within weeks of the Covenant shooting, Sarah would join two other moms who launched themselves into the political arena with such determination and vigor that I helped but take notice.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Never before was politics a factor in their lives but now it seemed to occupy every free moment they had for better or for worse.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So I decided to follow them, these three political newcomers, over the next year, because their presence here surprises me.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And in many ways, it surprises them too.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Maybe we need to speak out a little bit bolder.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Maybe we need to do something to get people's attention.
--:-- Maribah Knight: What would they accomplish?
--:-- Maribah Knight: How would the work change them?
--:-- Maribah Knight: And what might it all reveal about the fragility of our democracy?
--:-- Maribah Knight: From NPR's Embedded and WPLN in Nashville, I'm Maribah Knight, and you're listening to Supermajority.
--:-- Maribah Knight: More from Maribah when we come back to The Sunday Story.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Stay with us.
--:-- Maribah Knight: This message comes from BetterHelp.
--:-- Maribah Knight: President Fernando Madeira describes how BetterHelp online therapy has helped him.
--:-- Maribah Knight: For me, sometimes I just need to go and talk to somebody that is not going to judge me, right?
--:-- Maribah Knight: It's going to be there and they're going to listen to me.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And I can start just saying, look, I'm not feeling right today.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And it feels natural.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I love it.
--:-- Maribah Knight: To get matched with a therapist, visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.
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--:-- Maribah Knight: After Sarah Shoup Newman witnesses the expulsions and sees how they blow up in the national media, part of her is like, Well, good.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Y'all just exposed how things work here.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Maybe this will wake people up, she thinks.
--:-- Maribah Knight: At least people are going to pay attention.
--:-- Maribah Knight: At least other people are going to see what I saw and see that this isn't right.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Did something shift in you?
--:-- Maribah Knight: I think that's when I knew I have to do something.
--:-- Maribah Knight: As it happens, there's another mother from the Covenant School who feels the same, a 44-year-old commercial real estate broker named Melissa Alexander.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And Sarah took notice.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I had seen Melissa start sharing online.
--:-- Maribah Knight: She was posting things about her son who was up on the second floor, and she was just being very vocal about it.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So I messaged her, just like, I don't know if this is weird, but I'm trying to figure out what to do after this and how to get change.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Melissa, a wisp of a woman with sunny blonde hair and always perfect lip liner, is a Republican, a gun owner, and a staunch defender of the Second Amendment.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I always watch CBS mornings.
--:-- Maribah Knight: That was my national news station of choice.
--:-- Maribah Knight: It hit Melissa on March 28th, the day after the shooting.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And so I turn it on, but I'm watching on my phone because I don't want my children to see the news.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And while I was watching the eye opener and the music was playing, images from Covenant started to pop up.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And all of a sudden I see a picture of my family, the three of us hugging.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And I paused and I was shocked.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And the realization came over me that we are now survivors of a mass shooting.
--:-- Maribah Knight: We are part of that narrative that I never, ever imagined we would be part of.
--:-- Maribah Knight: That's when reality set in, and that's when that anger set in.
--:-- Maribah Knight: A third Covenant mother, Mary Joyce, a 39-year-old luxury real estate agent, was also angry and traumatized in trying to figure out what to do next.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Her daughter Monroe was in third grade at Covenant.
--:-- Maribah Knight: She'd survived, but three of her classmates were killed.
--:-- Maribah Knight: It was really scary because I've never spoken out politically.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I've always just kind of gone along with, you know, with the family and, oh, we're not Democrats or, oh, you know, we don't believe that.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Mary says her family are old school Southern conservatives and that she didn't come from privilege.
--:-- Maribah Knight: She was raised by a single mom and money was tight.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But Mary knows the expectations of a Southern woman like her.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Her mother is a daughter of the American Revolution.
--:-- Maribah Knight: It was drilled into her.
--:-- Maribah Knight: We are going to cross our legs, and we are not going to be offensive, and we are going to be polite and put together.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I would wear pearls running on the treadmill.
--:-- Maribah Knight: There's that.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I'm saying it out loud.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Even now, I've rarely seen such a put-together woman.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Hair, makeup, eyelashes, all-day heels, always toting around her Louis Vuitton handbag.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Her work bio lists one of her specialties as power mom.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And I loved it.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I love being from the South.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But I understand the rules of the South.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Those unspoken, this is your role.
--:-- Maribah Knight: and though we're, you know, we're independent, there's still this underlying, hey, just remember who you are.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Just remember how things work.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But when Sarah and Melissa start a text thread for other parents, Mary joins in.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And on it, she hears about a gun control protest at the Capitol they all plan to go to called Linking Arms for Change.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And Mary decides she needs to go too.
--:-- Maribah Knight: We went to the Capitol.
--:-- Maribah Knight: A place Mary had never been before.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And Melissa hadn't either.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Not since a third grade field trip.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And there were so many people.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And so many organizations.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And so many moms and parents and children.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And I had no idea that was out there.
--:-- Maribah Knight: There was a bunch of gun control organizations there.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Moms Demand Action, March for Our Lives, Safer Tennessee.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Local news station, WSMV 4 Nashville, recorded the event.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Welcome.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Thanks to all of you for joining us here as we link arms for change.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And I turn around and I see this line that continues for miles.
--:-- Maribah Knight: A three-mile chain of people that snaked from the state capitol to the Children's Hospital.
--:-- Maribah Knight: We must do something for the state of Tennessee, for the sake of our children, for the sake of this city.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And I had no idea so many people cared.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And that is the moment that I said, OK, we can do this.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So I'm in.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Like, let's go.
--:-- Maribah Knight: It's on this day, at this event, that Mary, Sarah, and Melissa meet face-to-face for the first time.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Afterwards, Sarah texts the group.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Could we keep this thread open, she asked.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Anybody open to talking about legislative things?
--:-- Maribah Knight: Within months, the women start organizing.
--:-- Maribah Knight: They announce the launch of a nonprofit and an action fund.
--:-- Maribah Knight: They start holding press conferences, urging lawmakers to pass stricter gun laws.
--:-- Maribah Knight: As mothers, as conservatives, they think, who better to push for change?
--:-- Maribah Knight: Good morning.
--:-- Maribah Knight: My name is Melissa Alexander.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I am a Covenant school parent and a co-founder of Covenant Families for Brighter Tomorrows and Covenant Families Action Fund.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Make no mistake, these women are not the first to try to do this work.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Covenant was one of many mass shootings in Tennessee.
--:-- Maribah Knight: There was one at a grocery store in 2021, outside a nightclub in 2022, at church twice,
--:-- Maribah Knight: And a few years before Covenant, a young man whose guns had been taken away in another state, but who was allowed to have them in Tennessee, had opened fire on a Waffle House, killing four people, all of whom were people of color.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The first parent I'd like to invite up is Sarah Shoup Newman.
--:-- Maribah Knight: My name is Sarah Shoup Newman.
--:-- Maribah Knight: People have fairly asked me, well, what did you do after the Waffle House shooting?
--:-- Maribah Knight: Nothing is the answer.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And that's really disappointing to me that it took this happening at my own child's school to look at what our laws were and see how things have changed.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I want to take a moment to say that I see all survivors of gun violence.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Your concerns have become my concerns.
--:-- Maribah Knight: After the Covenant shooting, Tennessee's Republican governor, Bill Lee, released a video statement.
--:-- Maribah Knight: What happened at Covenant school was a tragedy beyond comprehension.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Like many of you, I've experienced tragedy in my own life.
--:-- Maribah Knight: He'd been touched by the shooting himself.
--:-- Maribah Knight: His wife was close with two of the women who died at Covenant.
--:-- Maribah Knight: One was an old co-worker, and the other was the First Lady's best friend.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Maria woke up this morning without one of her best friends.
--:-- Maribah Knight: In fact, she was due to come to the governor's home for dinner the night she was killed.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The women meet with Governor Lee, and they say it's very productive that the governor seemed to be in agreement something must be done.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And if that's true, it would mean the governor challenging his own party in an open carry and permitless carry state.
--:-- Maribah Knight: First, he floats a red flag law, a way to remove guns from someone who may be at risk of harming themselves or others, which promptly gets the thumbs down from nearly every Republican lawmaker.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So the governor does something that will change the course of the women's lives, something that's seen as a political Hail Mary.
--:-- Maribah Knight: He calls the legislature back to the Capitol for a special session later that summer, with the sole focus on public safety and the Second Amendment.
--:-- Maribah Knight: A softer way, perhaps, of asking lawmakers to pass some kind of gun control legislation.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The women see the special session as their chance to make real change, so they kick into high gear.
--:-- Maribah Knight: They have more than 60 meetings with legislators.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The first meeting was a disaster.
--:-- Maribah Knight: mostly Republicans.
--:-- Maribah Knight: He wanted us to meet in a bagel shop and I could tell he was very defensive.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Some seem open to gun control measures like House Majority Leader William Lamberth.
--:-- Maribah Knight: We had Senator Briggs pretty early on and he was wonderful
--:-- Maribah Knight: Most were not in favor though
--:-- Maribah Knight: Several people told no
--:-- Maribah Knight: Senator Johnson really didn seem like he cared
--:-- Maribah Knight: Representative Fritz He didn try to you know he didn agree with us
--:-- Maribah Knight: He was so kind
--:-- Maribah Knight: I would say that a lot of those meetings were very cordial, very kind.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I'd have to look back at our list.
--:-- Maribah Knight: There's a whole bunch.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I reached out to a couple of the lawmakers Melissa and Sarah mentioned.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Senator Johnson didn't respond.
--:-- Maribah Knight: and Representative Fritz didn't dispute the women's recollections.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Before all these summer meetings, lawmakers have been receiving strongly worded letters from places like the American Firearms Association, warning them against supporting any gun control legislation.
--:-- Maribah Knight: We prosecute backstabbing Republicans in the court of public opinion, they wrote in one letter.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But now, here were these women, Republicans, conservatives, constituents, coming at them from their own side.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I was a little bit nervous about just being in the public spotlight and so visibly part of this narrative that was about to happen.
--:-- Maribah Knight: This is Melissa.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Obviously, there's a sense of anxiety and everything's come to a head, right?
--:-- Maribah Knight: This is everything we've worked for.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So here we go.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Let's see what happens.
--:-- Maribah Knight: After the break, the women head back to the Capitol for the special session they've been prepping for.
--:-- Maribah Knight: This message comes from NPR sponsor AARP.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Where do you see your career in 12 years?
--:-- Maribah Knight: What are you doing now to help you get there?
--:-- Maribah Knight: The sooner you start enhancing your skills, the sooner you'll be ready.
--:-- Maribah Knight: That's why AARP has management, finance, and small business reskilling courses, all to help your income live as long as you do.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Because the steps you choose to take today will help you love what you do in the future.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Learn more at aarp.org slash skills.
--:-- Maribah Knight: This is the Sunday Story, and this week you are listening to Embedded's new series, supermajority.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Back to Meribah.
--:-- Maribah Knight: On August 21st of 2023, the special session arrives.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The women get up early, eat breakfast, and kiss their kids goodbye.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Mary Joy stresses in her red Covenant t-shirt and pulls her shoulder-length hair into a loose ponytail.
--:-- Maribah Knight: She grabs her laminated sign, reading Covenant Mom for Firearm Safety, and heads back to the state capitol.
--:-- Maribah Knight: On the first day of special session, I had to walk through a crowd of Proud Boys.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Because I have the right to keep fucking talking.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I had to walk through them that day, too.
--:-- Maribah Knight: These guys in Proud Boy polo shirts.
--:-- Maribah Knight: They were shouting at anyone and everyone.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So I got four words for you.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Fuck around and find out, motherfucker.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Come on.
--:-- Maribah Knight: That's all I gotta say.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I just learned who those guys are.
--:-- Maribah Knight: That's different.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I mean, I don't know where that happens on a daily basis, but that's different with all their guns and all their weapons and their shouting and their, they look scary, like terrifying.
--:-- Maribah Knight: You need to fucking do something, motherfucker.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I want you to have a gun too, motherfucker.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I want you to have a gun too.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So we can do civil war.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So we can do civil war.
--:-- Maribah Knight: This is America.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Everyone has a gun.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But when the women arrive, it isn't only the Proud Boys they have to worry about.
--:-- Maribah Knight: At the last minute, House lawmakers close off one of the public galleries because they said they needed more space for lobbyists, legislative staff, and media.
--:-- Maribah Knight: That wasn't true.
--:-- Maribah Knight: There was plenty of space.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The women don't know now if they'll even get a seat, and they wonder, does our own government not want us here?
--:-- Maribah Knight: Then, Representative Justin Pearson appears.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Both he and the other expelled lawmaker, Justin Jones, have been re-elected by their districts just a couple weeks earlier.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Justin Pearson walks in with a group of people, and they're chanting, it was, whose house? Our house.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Whose house? Our house.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And he starts to walk his people by us, and we're kind of at the front of the line to get in the gallery.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And he just grabs us.
--:-- Maribah Knight: He says, come up.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Okay, go to the back and to level one.
--:-- Maribah Knight: He walks them up into the gallery and gives them a seat.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So we were on the front row in this front corner.
--:-- Maribah Knight: We're in the corner so you can see direct line of sight to the speaker.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And you're looking down on most of the house.
--:-- Maribah Knight: At that moment, I was like, breathe a sigh of relief.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I'm up here.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I've made it.
--:-- Maribah Knight: OK, let's go to the next step.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Mr. Sergeant of Arms, invite the members into the chamber and close the doors.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And I hereby declare the House of Representatives of the 113th General Assembly of the State of Tennessee now in an extraordinary session.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So we're like, OK, just stay quiet, stay poised.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Let's keep this consistent, right?
--:-- Maribah Knight: They see us, we're front row, remember all the good conversations we had, remember us.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Mary thought about their summer meetings with many of these lawmakers, especially ones with the House Majority Leader, William Lamberth, which the women had considered quite productive.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Larry Lambert, you're recognized.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Members, you have had available to you for the last several hours.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The women hold up their 8-by-11-inch signs, reading, Covenant Mom for Firearm Safety.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And they watch.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Representative Garrett, you're recognized.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I'm pleased to present the rules from the Rules Committee.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Rule number four, bands, voice and noise amplification devices, flags, signs, and banners from the galleries.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Sarah is thinking.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Okay, amplification devices.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Like the bullhorn Jones and Pearson had used when they walked into the well.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But signs?
--:-- Maribah Knight: Like the one she was holding?
--:-- Maribah Knight: Signs weren't explicitly banned in the General Assembly before these women showed up today with theirs.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But it seemed suspicious to Sarah.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And the other women.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And it turns out, the rule was introduced in a meeting just earlier that morning, in House Speaker Cameron Sexton's office.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But no public notice was given, which means the public wasn't there.
--:-- Maribah Knight: No media.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Which, by the way, isn't supposed to happen.
--:-- Maribah Knight: There are rules about this.
--:-- Maribah Knight: I asked the Speaker's office why they did it this way, and they said in an email that the meeting wasn't private.
--:-- Maribah Knight: But they didn't acknowledge my question about why public notice wasn't given.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Representative Pearson.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Thank you.
--:-- Maribah Knight: there was an article written about it called, Is Tennessee a Democracy?
--:-- Maribah Knight: He's referring here to Ann Applebaum's piece in The Atlantic.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And I believe today we are getting a very clear answer that it is not.
--:-- Maribah Knight: This is not how democracies operate.
--:-- Maribah Knight: You're saying with these rules that the folks who want you to know what they think are not deserving of being heard.
--:-- Maribah Knight: That's not democracy.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Leader Lambert.
--:-- Maribah Knight: All right, so a lot to unpack there, and thank you for your comments.
--:-- Maribah Knight: This is actually a constitutional federal republic, so I know that words democracy and republic get interchanged sometimes, but it is a constitutional federal republic, and I'm just going to make a few comments.
--:-- Maribah Knight: What Leader Lambert is saying here is that Representative Pearson is mistaken.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The U.S. isn't actually a democracy.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Rather, it's a constitutional federal republic.
--:-- Maribah Knight: He's basically putting a giant asterisk on the idea that the U.S. is a democracy in the first place.
--:-- Maribah Knight: A sort of, well, technically we're not argument.
--:-- Maribah Knight: So let's walk through this rhetoric for a moment.
--:-- Maribah Knight: In America, we vote for representatives.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Think county commissioners, city council, state house, U.S. Congress, etc.
--:-- Maribah Knight: And those folks then vote on our behalf.
--:-- Maribah Knight: It's true that the U.S. is not a direct democracy.
--:-- Maribah Knight: It's a constitutional federal republic because those elected officials then make decisions on our behalf.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The reason why Lambert's word choice matters, though, is that these terms have leapt out of the political science textbooks and into the national discourse.
--:-- Maribah Knight: The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, published an essay on the topic in 2020.
--:-- Maribah Knight: Then, shortly after,
