Democratic operatives in Florida were detained for protesting abortion rights Monday while their counterparts in Tennessee face expulsion in connection to their opposition to gun violence.
State Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried was arrested with Florida Sen. Lauren Book Monday after they refused to leave a park near Tallahassee City Hall, where protesters had gathered to oppose a bill to ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Police warned demonstrators anyone in the park after sunset would be taken into custody, WESH in Orlando reported. Both reps were reportedly charged with misdemeanor trespassing and released overnight.
“I’m out,” Fried tweeted along with a photo of herself being arrested. “And not even close to backing down.”
That tweet included a strong expletive imploring Floridians to vote, mimicking the shirt she wore at the time of her arrest.
Farther north in Tennessee, House Republicans filed resolutions to oust Democratic representatives Justin Jones, Gloria Johnson and Justin Pearson on Tuesday for their involvement in a gun-control demonstration in Nashville. Protesters have been accused of disrupting proceedings in the state capitol following a mass shooting in an elementary school earlier in the week. Jones and Johnson were stripped of their committee assignments by Republican House Speaker Cameron Sexton, according to the Tennessean.
“I absolutely appreciate all y’alls messages and calls of support at this unprecedented time of maga (sic) GOP overreach,” Johnson wrote in a Tuesday morning tweet urging supporters to return to the State Capitol at 8 a.m. Thursday.
Johnson claimed she’s been denied entry to the legislative office building, according to the Washington Post.
Saxton, advocating for peaceful protests, tweeted the Democratic lawmakers are being singled out because they broke “several rules of decorum and procedure on the House floor.”
Students in Nashville walked out of classrooms to join protestors at the Capitol Monday in a call for gun control legislation that might stop massacres like the March 27 shooting at the Covenant School, where three children and three adults were killed by a former student carrying multiple firearms.
Tensions have heated up between Democrats and Republicans in recent days after a grand jury in Manhattan voted to indict former President Donald Trump on criminal charges. Republican lawmakers including Marjorie Taylor Greene and George Santos descended on southern Manhattan Tuesday to protest the Queens’ native’s arrest.