Jones represents Nashville, the scene of a recent mass killing in which six people, including three children, were killed at a school.
Kirsten Allen, Harris’s spokeswoman, said on Twitter the vice president will travel to Nashville on Friday. “There she will meet with state lawmakers as well as young leaders who continue to demand action on common sense gun reform,” Allen said.
USA Today first reported the trip.
While the White House said Harris will meet with the three Democrats among other legislators and advocates, it did not specify who else the vice president will talk to during her quick visit to Nashville. The White House also said that while in Nashville Harris will “continue to call on Congress to renew the assault weapons ban and ensure that in Tennessee and across the nation, the voices of our young people are heard.”
The Tennessee House voted 72-25 to oust Jones, a 27-year-old community organizer elected in November to represent part of Nashville. They voted 69-26 to expel Pearson. While they came close, Republicans did not have enough votes to remove Johnson, a former teacher from Knoxville who lost a student to gun violence.
The votes to oust Jones and Pearson came less than two weeks after a shooter opened fire at the Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, killing three 9-year-olds and three adults. The mass killing prompted an outpour of demands that the Tennessee legislature do more to prevent gun violence and pass gun-control legislation. Republicans, with supermajorities in both chambers, refused to do so.
The three lawmakers — dubbed the Tennessee Three — said they joined the protests inside the legislative chamber to speak out for Tennesseans whose voices have been ignored.
The targeting of the three lawmakers sparked widespread condemnation nationwide. On Friday morning, the vice president said on Twitter that the votes to expel the lawmakers were “undemocratic and dangerous.”
“Six people, including three children, were killed last week in a school shooting in Nashville,” Harris said. “How did Republican lawmakers in Tennessee respond? By expelling their colleagues who stood with Tennesseans and said enough is enough.”
Her statements echoed what President Biden tweeted earlier on Thursday, saying that “punishing lawmakers who joined thousands of peaceful protesters calling for action” is “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.”
Before Thursday’s votes, the Tennessee House had expelled members only three times over its history, according to a report from the office of the state’s attorney general. In 1866, six members were expelled “for the contempt of the authority of this House.” In 1980, a member was expelled for seeking a bribe in exchange for tanking a piece of legislation. And in 2016, a representative was expelled amid state and federal investigations of sexual misconduct.
Democrats have claimed that the move to out Jones and Pearson was racially motivated and an affront to First Amendment rights.
“Peaceful protest is the lifeblood of American democracy,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) tweeted on Friday. “By expelling two Black duly-elected state representatives calling for an assault weapons ban, white Tennessee Republicans made it clear: They care more about checks from the gun lobby than our kids and democracy itself.”
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) tweeted Friday that the move was a “racist attack by fascist TN lawmakers.”
And Jones — ahead of the vote to expel him — on Thursday reminded his colleagues that some members of the state legislature remained in their seats even after committing grave offenses.
“For years, one of your colleagues, an admitted child molester, sat in this chamber — no expulsion,” he said.
Tyler Pager contributed to this report.
