A legal challenge to a controversial statehouse rule has been settled.
The ACLU had originally sued over a rule that attempted to ban spectators from holding signs in the gallery during last month’s special legislative session. Now, the plaintiffs and Tennessee’s attorney general have agreed to dismiss the lawsuit, which was brought on behalf of three Tennesseans — Erica Bowton, Maryam Abolfazli and Allison Polidor.
State troopers removed Polidor from a House subcommittee for holding a sign that read “1 Kid > All The Guns” at the start of the special legislative session. The next day, a Nashville judge temporarily blocked the rule.
“I am the face of every mother in America that is just dead tired of seeing the news and watching our children being massacred every day and our lawmakers doing nothing to protect them,” Polidor says.
In its arguments for dismissing the case, the state says that the new rules will not carry over to the regular legislative session, so it wouldn’t make sense for the case to go further.