Attacks on legislative independence
Use of governmental authority — DOJ action, federal-funding leverage, executive authority, or legislative-procedural authority (committee assignments, floor discipline, expulsion) by chamber leadership against dissenting members — to punish legislators for lawful exercise of their role (votes, oversight, dissent, protest). Excludes ordinary political opposition (endorsements, primary challenges, public criticism) and routine proportionate discipline for individual procedural violations. The marker is institutional power used in disproportionate or eliminative fashion.
Documented entries (1)
Tennessee House Speaker strips entire Democratic caucus of all committee assignments in retaliation for May 7 floor protest of anti-Black gerrymander
On May 12, 2026, Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R) removed every member of the state House Democratic caucus from every standing committee and subcommittee assignment. The stated reason was the caucus's conduct during the May 7 special session, where Democrats protested the passage of a new congressional map eliminating Memphis's majority-Black 9th district. The blanket scope of the action — caucus-wide rather than targeting individual members for specific procedural violations — is what makes this distinct from routine legislative discipline and an exercise of institutional power against the minority party itself.