Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Alex Wagner Tonight” that the Justice Department has a duty to investigate the Tennessee legislator for expelling two members.
Warnock said, “The federal government has a role to play in protecting the integrity of our democracy. Nothing could be more important than that. I am heartened that Representative Pierson and Representative Jones have been rightfully returned to their seat. The city councils in Nashville and in Memphis did the right thing, but this unabashed assault on the very foundation of democracy continues unabated. I think this is a very dangerous precedent, and returning them as their local leadership did this week doesn’t solve the problem.”
He added, “We, I reached out to the Justice Department because I think that it is its duty to investigate whether the constitutional rights, first of all, of the citizens that they represented had been violated. Citizens have a right to decide who’s going to represent them. And unfortunately, members of this state legislature, I think, have been playing games for so long, engaged in partisan and racial gerrymandering. Right now, the Tennessee legislature doesn’t actually look the way that people of Tennessee voted. So they have been getting away with this, playing these games so long that they have convinced themselves that the people’s House doesn’t belong to the people. It belongs to them. And so I think is a role for the federal government play here, which is why we sent the letter. We will continue to make the case.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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