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Tennessee has become a new front in the battle for the future of American democracy after Republicans expelled two Black lawmakers from the state Legislature for their part in a protest urging passage of gun-control measures

Freshly expelled Tennessee politician Justin Jones appears to have enough votes in the Nashville Metropolitan Council to send him back to the state legislature.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden condemned Tennessee Republicans’ expulsion of two lawmakers who protested a deadly Nashville school shooting last week, calling the episode unprecedented and calling out GOP leaders for refusing to enact tighter gun-control laws.

Vice President Kamala Harris is making a last-minute trip to Tennessee on Friday, hours after the Republican-controlled House expelled two Democratic lawmakers from the state Legislature in retaliation for their role in a protest calling for more gun control in the aftermath of a deadly school shooting in Nashville

Two of the lawmakers were booted from office Thursday.

The former vice president who is a native of Tennessee and the former president said the expulsion was undemocratic

The GOP is an authoritarian, extremist political party that is out of the mainstream of American life

Jones, one of two Black Democrats expelled from the state House, tells NPR he's keeping his options open and would "most definitely" demand his seat back if local officials reappointed him to it.

The GOP supermajority in the House banished Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who are both Black, for joining a protest for gun control after the Nashville school shooting.