Tennessee, figured out
In one sense, everyone got basically what they wanted out of the Tennessee embrogalo. From a partisan strategic vantage point, the Republican supermajority could have been smarter — censure, strip A committee assignment or two — but trying to think this through — I have no idea one way or the other if it would result about the same martry status.
From their point, the two expelled legislators would have had zero legislative power in even a theoretical not super-gerrymandered Tennessee. The gun control is a no-go in this state. Like, it is worth pointing out on “Do something” — the Tennessee State legislator has done somethings — they shortened the response time for first responders and eliminated the hesitancy that plagued earlier school shootings. As a result, deaths here by a… Disgruntled adult Non-student *… are in the single digits instead of the double digits. Now what the neck was this adult non student doing on this elementary school where, strictly speaking, in a classic school shooting scenario at an elementary school the youngster would have likely been inept enough and not fully committed and stopped by a non strained adult to limit the shootings to a mere wounding or two?
Of course, that is not what gets sold as “do something”. It ends and starts at banning a gun or two. Which, if you want to get Tennessee to do, you have to circumvent the state legislature. You have the loud opinionated minority in the galleys shouting for something, insisting ” This is what democracy looks like”. And by bumping aside the rules, knowing you won’t accomplish anything in the rules, you can become a national figure — a power source from a different place. Would they have achieved this status from a mere censor and committee stripping? I do not know, but I could give two rats about the Tennessee Republican and Democratic parties — it does happen to be the correct principled punishment regardless. In that hypothetical world, I guess it would be interesting to observe what happens at the next strategic breaching of disruption of legislative processes.
- * I have to point that out because I sees headline for remedies that would have its drawbacks and weaknesses even if it were a go, that has it with “Children killing Children”. No such thing happened here.