If it’s FRIDAY… Federal authorities arrest 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard member in leak of classified documents… Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis quietly signs six-week abortion ban into law… VP Harris delivers keynote address at National Action Network conference in New York at noon ET… Donald Trump and Mike Pence address NRA meeting in Indianapolis, NBC’s Jon Allen and Olympia Sonnier report… And DeSantis, who speaks to the NRA confab via video message, delivers remarks at Liberty University and visits New Hampshire.

But FIRST… Intense gerrymandering and uncompetitive elections are just one component of what originally fueled the demonstrations by those Democratic Tennessee lawmakers and then later their expulsion by the GOP-controlled state House.

The other part is how the majority has curbed debate and minority rights.

“Well, they’ve limited debate to what they say is five minutes. But in reality, you ask one question, they’ll spend five minutes answering it, and your time is up,” said Justin Jones, one of the two expelled Black lawmakers who were later reinstated to office by their communities.

And it’s not just in Tennessee.

NBC News has discovered a handful states where the political majority recently has limited debate and/or minority rights.

Alabama: The state’s Senate passed a rules package this year after just 13 minutes of discussion on the subject. One new rule in the package limits debate on Budget Isolation Resolutions to just 10 minutes. Budget Isolation Resolutions allow the chamber to pass other legislation before they pass an appropriations bill. Without a BIR, the chamber is not allowed to pass any other legislation before they pass even a basic budget bill. Consistent with previous years, the chamber still needs a three-fifths majority vote to pass a BIR.

Colorado: This one isn’t technically a rule change, but the Democratic majority in Colorado’s House was able to enact a rule already on the books in the middle of a debate over two gun-control measures in March of this year. Republicans were filibustering on the two measures, so the Democratic majority voted in the middle of the debate to enact a rule that would limit debate on any bill to just one hour. The rule hadn’t been previously used “in recent memory,” according to the Denver Post.

North Carolina: The Republican majority in the House passed new rules this year that give a shorter notice ahead of votes to override the Democratic governor’s veto. This was when the GOP controlled one seat fewer than what is needed for a veto-proof majority, so if two Democrats broke party lines or didn’t show up to vote, Republicans had enough votes to override a veto if they were all present. Recently, one Democratic lawmaker switched parties, giving Republicans a simple majority even without this rule.

Texas: Republicans in the state Senate voted in 2021 to lower the threshold of votes needed to bring legislation to the floor. Previously, three-fifths of lawmakers (19) needed to vote in favor of bringing legislation to the floor. The Republicans lost one seat in the Senate in 2020, so they lowered the threshold to just 18 votes in 2021.

It’s not lost on us, by the way, that this erosion of minority rights is taking place in an environment where national Democrats want to eliminate the Senate filibuster in the nation’s capital.