Kamala Harris leads Tennessee rally, backs ousted lawmakers

By TRAVIS LOLLER, KRISTIN M. HALL and ZEKE MILLER
Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris has made a last-minute trip to Tennessee to support two Democratic lawmakers who were expelled by the Republican-controlled state House for their role in a protest following a deadly school shooting in Nashville. Harris on Friday called for background checks and an assault weapons ban. She also condemned the GOP lawmakers as anti-democratic. The two ejected lawmakers had called for more gun control during a rally, and a third Democrat was narrowly spared by a one-vote margin. Harris said they were being silenced and stifled for standing up for the lives of schoolchildren. Friday’s visit comes after President Joe Biden called the expulsions “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.”