In some GOP-dominated statehouses, Black and trans lawmakers punished

In more than a dozen deep-red states in recent months, Republican lawmakers passed bills to ban transgender health care and restrict access to abortions while ignoring calls for gun control measures.

The fierce but futile opposition has often been led by a new generation of liberal lawmakers, some of them Black or transgender, who have represented their constituents by pushing the debate into places that have angered Republicans. GOP lawmakers have said Democrats are welcome to dissent but have to follow long-established rules of decorum, including acting civilly and not interrupting floor sessions.

In some states, Republicans have voted to punish those lawmakers.

In Montana, Republicans banished a transgender Democratic lawmaker from the house floor for championing a protest in the gallery over a bill to ban gender-affirming care for children. In Oklahoma, Republicans stripped a Black, nonbinary Democratic lawmaker of committee assignments when a protester took refuge in the lawmaker’s office for several hours after a scuffle with a state trooper. And in Tennessee, Republicans expelled two Black legislators for disrupting a floor session by participating in a protest for gun control.

In each case, Republican leaders accused the Democrats of crossing lines and said they needed to be held to account for disrupting legislative activities or encouraging those who do.

The unusually severe punishments — the kind of actions that have usually been reserved for lawmakers who broke laws — have alarmed democracy advocates and illustrate how polarized many statehouses have become, especially in legislatures where Republicans have secured supermajorities that render Democrats nearly powerless.

Democrats in GOP-dominated legislatures can rarely rally enough votes to block legislation but can shape public opinion through floor speeches, committee debates and protests. While the resulting discipline some lawmakers have faced has limited their ability to speak in their own chambers, it has allowed them to spread their messages further and bring national attention to what is happening in their states.

“The world turned its eyes towards Montana and saw how far the Republicans in this state would go to achieve their goals — that it wasn’t enough to pass the bills but that they were seeking to silence those who stood up to hold them accountable. And they were willing to throw away democracy in the process,” said state Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D), who was banned from the floor of the Montana House last month after saying that a bill outlawing gender-affirming care for children would increase the risk of suicide.

Some Republicans have raised concerns that members of their party are emboldening their opposition with their disciplinary votes. That’s particularly true for the expulsion of two Tennessee lawmakers, said Oscar Brock, a Republican National Committee member from the state.

“By expelling them and putting it on the news every night for really two weeks, it gave them a lot more power and a lot more prominence,” Brock said.

The recent punishments echo moments from the civil rights era, including when the Georgia House refused to seat Black social activist Julian Bond in 1966 because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. The Supreme Court ultimately found Bond had been improperly kept out of office.

“It’s strange to see history repeat itself. It was happening in waves then, and it is happening in waves now,” said Andrew Aydin, who co-wrote a graphic memoir with the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) that documents Bond’s experience.

Tim Storey, the chief executive of the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan association of state legislators, cautioned that while the recent punishments have generated extensive media coverage, “there have been far more uncivil times” in U.S. statehouses.

“People have literally been killed on the floors of legislatures before, physical fights have broken out,” Storey said, “so it wouldn’t be accurate to say this moment is unprecedented.”

Not all of the lawmakers who have faced discipline recently have been Democrats. Last month, Republicans in the Arizona House joined with Democrats to expel a GOP lawmaker for “disorderly behavior.” The removal of Liz Harris, who has a history of spreading misinformation about elections and voting, stemmed from an explosive February hearing in which Harris’ witness accused a Mexican drug cartel of an unproven election-fraud scheme that involved bribing leaders from both major political parties, judges, election officials and others.

A Republican-led ethics investigation into Harris’ activities surrounding the hearing found that she lied to her colleagues about her knowledge and role of her witness’ testimony. Harris and her supporters have cast her expulsion as undemocratic and are demanding her reinstatement. The 28 Democrats and 18 Republicans who supported her removal said they relied on the democratic process to oust her, which included a hearing that allowed her to defend herself.

The punishment of state lawmakers has become so frequent and momentous this legislative session that Ballotpedia, a nonprofit online encyclopedia of American politics, decided in April to start compiling a historical account of state lawmaker expulsions.

So far, Ballotpedia has tracked 70 cases in which elected officials were expelled from state legislative chambers between 1813 and 2023. They include 37 Democrats, 24 Republicans, and seven members of the Socialist Party. Since 2020, at least nine lawmakers have been kicked out of state legislatures. Among them were legislators accused of committing crimes, engaging in hostile behavior and, in one case, allowing armed far-right protesters into the Oregon Capitol.

Much of the tension this spring has centered on legislation targeting transgender rights, as Republicans have introduced more than 400 bills, at least 35 of which have become law so far, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the American Civil Liberties Union. That’s more than the number of such bills introduced over the previous four years combined.

In the halls of the Oklahoma Capitol in February, there were cries of protest against legislation to ban gender-affirming care, including puberty-blocking treatments for gender dysphoric youth and hormone treatments for adults who transitioned years ago. State troopers allege transgender activist Devyn Mitchell threw water on a Republican lawmaker. When they moved in to arrest him, video shows, Mitchell pushed back against a trooper and yelled, “Respect me!”

Mitchell’s partner, Ari Ross, briefly intervened, then stepped away and howled for help as the trooper handcuffed Mitchell, according to the video.

Ross took refuge in the office of state Rep. Mauree Turner, a Black nonbinary Democrat who led opposition to the legislation. Republican lawmakers alleged Turner, who uses they/them pronouns, barred the troopers from questioning Ross, which the lawmaker denies.

Ross said she went to Turner’s office for a few hours to calm down and that law enforcement officers eventually came to the office to meet with her. Arrest records make no mention of troopers being prevented from talking to Ross, and a spokeswoman for the troopers said she had no additional information beyond what’s in those documents. The district attorney has decided not to charge Ross, a spokeswoman for the district attorney said Monday.

Turner, who was first elected in 2020, has not been charged with a crime, but Republican legislative leaders accused them of impeding a law enforcement investigation. A week after the incident in Turner’s office, Republicans voted to censure Turner — and removed the lawmaker from committee assignments — ordering Turner to apologize to the legislature to regain the positions. Turner has refused.

“I’m not going to apologize for something I didn’t do,” said Turner. “These are people who are drunk on power and a need to control. A need to control me. A need to control others and their bodily autonomy.”

Immediately following the vote, which fell along party lines, state House Speaker Charles McCall (R) issued a statement, saying Turner had “knowingly, and willfully, impeded a law enforcement investigation, harboring a fugitive and repeatedly lying to officers, and used their official office and position to thwart attempts by law enforcement to make contact with a suspect of the investigation.” McCall not return calls and emails seeking comment.

State House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson (D) said Republicans have not provided evidence that Turner impeded the investigation, “not from the time of the incident to the time of the censure, not even to this day.”

Munson argued the discipline Turner faced was far too harsh, noting the same punishment was given to state Rep. Dean Davis (R) after he was arrested in March for public intoxication and was captured by a police body camera saying he was not subject to arrest because he was a lawmaker. It was the second alcohol-related offense for Davis since he took office in 2018. Records show Davis was censured after Munson publicly called on Republicans to hold their colleague to account for his actions.

Davis, who did not respond to a request for comment, has denied wrongdoing but apologized for creating a distraction. He voted to censure Turner on March 7, but Turner did not vote to censure Davis on March 27.

“We were all elected here, and the people who elected us will either make sure that we stay or make sure that we go,” Turner said during the debate over Davis’ censure.

Turner said efforts to disenfranchise them continue. Two weeks ago, Turner said they were told they would not be allowed to vote because they had violated the House dress code by wearing a sweatshirt with the phrase “Protect American Families in the Mass Incarceration Crisis.” Turner noticed a Republican lawmaker a few seats away, they said, who was wearing a Blue Lives Matter necktie in support of law enforcement.

“I walked up to leadership and said, ‘If you’re going to remove my vote, are you going to remove his? Is this something that you’re going to make sure is standard across the board?’” Turner recalled. “They dropped it because it wasn’t about violating a dress code. It was about silencing people of color and trans folks.”

In Montana, Zephyr angered Republicans when she argued against legislation banning gender-affirming care for children and said: “I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.”

Republicans called the comment inappropriate and stopped recognizing her when she asked to speak on the floor. Days later, Zephyr’s supporters protested at the state Capitol and chanted “Let her speak” from the house gallery. Zephyr held up her microphone, which wasn’t turned on, in support. Republicans said she violated the rules of decorum and last month barred her from the house floor, saying she would have to cast votes remotely for the remaining two weeks of the legislative session.

Montana House Majority Leader Sue Vinton (R ) said in a floor speech that Zephyr needed to be disciplined because she had “encouraged the continuation of the disruption of this body, placing legislators, staff and even our pages at risk of harm.”

“Freedom in this body involves obedience to all the rules of this body, including the rules of decorum,” she said.

Zephyr received national attention and thousands of supportive emails that she said show her 11,000 constituents were being heard even though Republicans had silenced her on the house floor.

“I believe that the world has seen how far the extremists that have taken hold of the Republican Party will go — how far they will go, what they will cast aside,” she said. “And the world has also seen a glimpse of what our states, what our country can be when we, both as leaders and as a community, stand up together.”

Zephyr and four of her constituents last week filed a lawsuit with the help of the ACLU arguing the banishment violated their rights to free speech and equal protection under the law. A judge declined to let her return to the house floor, ruling such a move “would require this court to interfere with legislative authority in a manner that exceeds this court’s authority.”

Hours later, the legislative session ended, which terminated Zephyr’s censure. As soon as it did, she walked onto the house floor and hugged her colleagues, she said. Zephyr said she is exploring her options for continuing her lawsuit.

In Nebraska, state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh was threatened in March with censure after saying a trio of bills that sought to restrict transgender rights were meant to “legislate hate” and would lead to the “genocide” of transgender people.

State Sen. Julie Slama, who sought the censure, took to Twitter to make her case against Cavanaugh: “We must draw a line in the sand for acceptable conduct in this Legislature, just like every other state legislature already has done.”

Legislative leaders have so far declined to bring a vote.

Matthew Brown, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Alice Crites contributed to this report.