(NewsNation) — Republican lawmakers in Tennessee held a series of votes Thursday to expel two Democrats for joining a protest in the legislature in response to the Nashville school shooting.
A third Democrat survived an expulsion by one vote.
In a debate with conservative Tennessee talk show host Ben Ferguson on “CUOMO,” Democratic State Rep. Antonio Parkinson called the explanation for the expulsions “b——-.”
“When you get elected in the Tennessee legislature, you have an orientation, a freshman orientation,” Ferguson said. “They tell you the rules of the chamber. They tell you what decorum is. They tell you what you do, if you violate it, what the consequences are if you violate the rules.”
Parkinson pushed back, saying, “When he got to the to the House, he’d never got an orientation and he never got rules,” Parkinson said. “I came because of a special election also. When I got there, I’d never got an orientation, never got told about the rules. I had to learn them as I went.”