Former President Donald Trump and other 2024 hopefuls will arrive in Nashville this weekend for a long-scheduled Republican donor retreat, but many state Republicans worry the recent ouster of two black Democrats from the Tennessee Legislature could overshadow the event.
The arrival of high-profile Republican candidates and their potential donors comes just over a week after Tennessee Republicans took the unprecedented move to remove Representatives Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson from office for leading anti-violence protests. armed in the chamber. A third Democrat, Rep. Gloria Johnson, who is white, survived her ouster vote, prompting accusations of racism that focused national attention on the GOP-led House.
The fallout from those votes comes as the national Republican Party is already locked in struggles over how to balance policies and issues that are popular with the conservative base (support for abortion restrictions and opposition to new gun restrictions) but deeply unattractive to swing voters in battleground states. which will play a vital role in next year’s elections.
“What happened at the state Capitol last week, I don’t see how it will have a positive impact on the Republican Party. Not even a minute,” Eddie Mannis, a former Republican member of the Tennessee state House of Representatives, said in an interview.
Mannis, who in 2021 became the first openly gay Republican member of the state legislature, left earlier this year after just one term, alleging that Republican leaders in the chamber had muted their efforts to steer them away from their intense focus on social issues.
“There is no question in my mind that these things mislead the national party,” he told NBC News.
Republicans in the Tennessee House of Representatives were largely surprised by the intense national attention sparked by their decision to oust Jones and Pearson. filtered out Audio On behalf of a recent gathering of Republican state representatives, several legislators angrily complained about how Democrats had portrayed their actions as racist.
A spokesman for the Tennessee State House Republican caucus did not respond to questions from NBC News.
Republicans in Tennessee who are involved with the party at the state and national level are now trying to figure out how to move forward in a way that can help soften the criticism party leaders face.
“We have to remind ourselves that perception does matter, and if it was easy enough to perceive, for an outsider, that there were racial implications, we will simply have to understand that in the future we cannot act in a way that could be perceived as racially insensitive or outright racist,” said Oscar Brock, a member of the Tennessee Republican National Committee.
“One of the unfortunate consequences of having a large majority is that you tend to think that you don’t have to listen to the minority party,” he added.
Many Republican officials and activists who spoke to NBC News defended the removals, saying the only misstep was not removing Johnson as well.
“The only thing that disappointed me was that Gloria Johnson wasn’t expelled as well, just because now it gives the narrative … that somehow this is racist and it’s not racist,” said Rick Williams, a local Republican activist who co-chaired the two previous Trump presidential campaigns in a suburban Nashville county.
Jones, Pearson, and Johnson had targeted supporters in chants calling for gun restrictions after a shooting at a Nashville school that killed six people, including three 9-year-olds. The three legislators broke House rules by speaking when they were not authorized to do so, and Jones and Pearson addressed the protesters with a megaphone.
John Stanbery, a member of the executive committee of the Tennessee Republican Party, compared the actions of the «Tennessee Three» to the January 6 rioters, saying the punishment of expulsion was appropriate, but acknowledged that the decision to expel them was «politically It’s not a smart move.»
The swift and heavy-handed decision to deal with those actions through removal, rather than something less severe but significant, such as voting to censure lawmakers, has led Tennessee Republicans to wring their hands.
“All this did nothing to punish [Jones and Pearson]. In the end, they have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter” and probably in fundraising as well, Jim Garrett, former chairman of the Davidson County Republican Party, the Nashville-area GOP apparatus, said in an interview.
Jones and Pearson were reinstated this week after local council and commission votes.
“It was a net loss for the Republicans,” Brock added. «What we win? We got a lot of negative publicity.»
Tennessee Republicans were in the news again this week after Republican Gov. Bill Lee asked the state House to pass the equivalent of a red flag gun law, only for the Legislature to take abrupt action less than 48 hours. later to adjourn your session until next week. after dealing with the state budget, so a gun bill is almost certainly not going to land on the governor’s desk any time soon.
Those actions are likely to put pressure on the 2024 Republicans this weekend.
Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, who has yet to announce his 2024 plans, have not commented publicly on the removal of Jones and Pearson. Spokesmen for Trump and Pence did not respond to questions from NBC News.
“None of the consequences of the action were helpful to the Republican Party,” Brock said. «And now you’re going to have… donors and candidates this weekend who are going to be asked what they think of all this, and it’s going to make them feel uncomfortable.»