Tennessee's attorney general has determined that protestors in the Tennessee House have no free speech right to hold up letter-size signs calling for gun reform or anything else, an outcome convenient for the legislators there who would prefer not to have to see them.
This all stems from a lawsuit filed early Wednesday morning by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, which asked a Davidson County judge to block the Tennessee House from enforcing a newly adopted rule that prohibits protesters from displaying small signs during legislative proceedings.
The lawsuit was filed in Davidson County Chancery Court on behalf of three women who want lawmakers to pass serious gun reforms, including Nashville mother Allison Polidor, who was removed from a House subcommittee Tuesday for holding a small sign.
That sign read: "1 KID > ALL THE GUNS."
"Signs, and the action of silently holding them, are forms of speech and are protected under the First Amendment," the lawsuit argues.
Now it goes to a judge to make a ruling. Here's more coverage of the hearings that Tennessee's overwhelmingly Republican House would rather not be public, blocking more than 50 gun-related bills and removing two people from the session for holding signs saying "1 KID > ALL THE GUNS," then removing every single member of the public in attendance after they offended Chairman Lowell Russell by clapping when a bill allowing guns in schools failed to pass. From The Daily Beast's report, it sounds like they gave themselves a do-over and got it passed.
