If they had expelled her that would be ok as she could be replaced. However, taking away her ability to vote, ie taking away her constituents’ representation, does seem wrong to me.
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Maybe her constituents could vote for a less odious person next time whose actions wont be subject to censure. Seems like a democratic remedy exists that means Supreme Court intervention is unnecessary.
The democratic remedy being that the constituents are deprived of representation until the next election? The fact is that there is no workable rule where this is legally ok and it’s also not ok for republican states to deprive democratic legislators of voting rights for supporting gay marriage.
Legislative bodies have been able to set the terms for being a member in good standing for a long time - congress can refuse to seat people in certain cases. States that want to be able to replace ineffective reps should institute recall measures.
The contours of what they’re allowed to do haven’t been fully delineated, and we already know refusing to sit a member for speech is prohibited. It’s also presumed to be the case that you can’t punish a legislator based on race. SCOTUS has now hinted 1A retaliation is prohibited to some degree.
Sounds like she named a trans minor on social media with the -if not intended- very predictable result that a kid just trying to live their life was a target of harassment. Given that there is a zero percent chance this court will be even handed in their interventions, I’d rather them stfu.
When we’re talking about a general rule for protected speech that the court will apply, I don’t really see the relevancy of the content of such protected speech.
I guess my thought is just that Robert’s Court isn’t famous for their evenhanded concerns about representation, so this feels more like “encouraging harassment of a trans kid is cool” than “depriving people of representation is bad”
And indeed in Tennessee the legislators swiftly won back their seats so even if expulsion isn’t distinguishable, SCOTUS didn’t have a chance to decide. Another distinction may be whether the speech occurs in the legislative chamber or not.
Except that apparently that wasn't at all the end of the matter.
Perhaps Jones erred in not realizing just how much of an interest the US Supreme Court has in fair play in state legislatures. Poor guy's stuck in a district court that's following procedure.
I think the allegations here (1) may be within the powers of the state legislator, since they aren’t restricting his ability to vote or (2) aren’t worth SCOTUS intervention. My understanding is in the Libby case SCOTUS just granted relief for voting. She’s still banned from speaking.
I really think it’s just the ban on voting that crossed SCOTUS’ line. I would also want SCOTUS to intervene if Texas stripped voting powers from all dem legislators who, e.g., spoke out in support of the state legalizing abortion, in support of LGBT issues, etc.
I don't know that I disagree, although the degree of intervention here strikes me as rather substantial by comparison to other instances where the Court has pleaded federalism.
Fundamentally, though, I just do not trust the Justices on this Supreme Court to play fair procedurally or otherwise.
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Perhaps Jones erred in not realizing just how much of an interest the US Supreme Court has in fair play in state legislatures. Poor guy's stuck in a district court that's following procedure.
https://tennesseelookout.com/2025/01/06/tennessee-representative-pushes-lawsuit-against-house-speaker/
Fundamentally, though, I just do not trust the Justices on this Supreme Court to play fair procedurally or otherwise.