The Tennessee statehouse has expelled two Democratic politicians who led a gun control protest that halted legislative proceedings last week.
Ednews informs via foreign media that in a rare move, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 72-25 to expel Justin Jones and 69-26 to remove Justin Pearson.
But an expulsion vote failed against a third Democratic lawmaker, Gloria Johnson, who also joined the protest.
Crowds of protesters have flooded the State Capitol since a school shooting.
The 27 March attack at Nashville's Covenant School killed six people, including three children.
The so-called "Tennessee Three" took to the House floor chanting "no action, no peace" during a protest on 30 March, which also saw hundreds of pro-gun control demonstrators converge on the statehouse.
Mr Jones, 27, and Mr Pearson, 28, used a megaphone and banged on the House lectern as they made rousing speeches and addressed the protesters who crowded around the chamber's public viewing platform.
"We don't want to be up here, but we have no choice but to find a way... to disrupt business as normal, because business as normal is our children dying," Mr Pearson said.
The chamber's proceedings were brought to a standstill for nearly an hour.
All three also chanted "enough is enough" and "power to the people". Political analysists said Ms Johnson may have been spared expulsion because she did not use a megaphone.
However she has suggested that Republicans did not expel her because she is white, whereas Mr Jones and Mr Pearson are both black.
US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, slammed the expulsions as "shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent".
Mr Jones told the BBC that the move had left 78,000 people in one of the state's most diverse districts without representation.
He said an "extreme republican supermajority, almost completely a white caucus" had expelled the "two youngest black lawmakers because we stood demanding action on gun violence".
