Not long after Tennessee Republicans removed two legislators from a state chamber after they expressed support on the floor of the state House for protests demanding action on gun violence, Republicans in Montana undertook a similar move. A GOP majority in that state’s House recently voted to block Rep. Zooey Zephyr from the legislative floor after she expressed support for protesters rallying behind LGBTQ+ rights.
Zephyr, who’s the first openly transgender member of the legislature in Montana, had herself also been opposing GOP moves targeting members of these communities, and GOP leadership was resisting allowing her to even speak. At issue in Montana has been a GOP-led ban to block gender-affirming care for transgender minors through specific bans on using certain public resources in support of such services and potentially devastating consequences connected to private healthcare professionals providing them. In Montana and Tennessee, where similar restrictions have recently been under dispute, such care remains available when it’s outside the context of gender dysphoria, which while not always experienced by people who are transgender has repeatedly been referenced as a marker.
The discrepancy raises questions under the U.S. Constitution’s demands for equal protection under the law, and the federal Justice Department has brought a lawsuit over the Tennessee measures.
“From Tennessee to Montana, the expulsion and silencing of elected state legislators for their political expression escalates the MAGA attack on representative democracy and political freedom,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), serving as a member of the U.S. Congress, said. “The pro-Bill of Rights majority of Americans stands tall with Rep. Zephyr.” In Tennessee, GOP legislators’ decisions to remove those other Democratic members were already undone, with local administrative authorities in these Democrats’ home areas voting to send both back as interim legislators until special elections are held.
From Tennessee to Montana, the expulsion and silencing of elected state legislators for their political expression escalates the MAGA attack on representative democracy and political freedom.
The pro-Bill of Rights majority of Americans stands tall with Rep. Zephyr. https://t.co/ww0Ingkr4Q— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@RepRaskin) April 27, 2023
