1. Early life, education, and law career

2. U.S. House of Representatives (1983–1995)
    Elections  Tenure  Committee assignments 

3. 1994 U.S. Senate election

4. Inter-congressional years (1995–2003)

5. U.S. House of Representatives (2003–present)
    Elections  Tenure  Committee assignments 

6. Personal life

7. References

8. External links

Early life, education, and law career

Cooper was born in Nashville and raised in Shelbyville, Tennessee.^[2] He is the son of former governor Prentice Cooper and his wife Hortense (Powell).^[3] His paternal grandfather, William Prentice Cooper, served as the mayor of Shelbyville and Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.^[4] The Cooper family owns the River Side Farmhouse, built for his great-great-grandfather, Jacob Morton Shofner, in 1890,^[5] the Gov. Prentice Cooper House, built for his grandfather in 1904,^[6] as well as the 1866 Absalom Lowe Landis House in Normandy, Tennessee, all of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.^[7]

Cooper attended the Episcopal boys' boarding school Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts^[8] and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was a member of the Alpha Sigma Chapter of the Chi Psi fraternity, a recipient of the Morehead-Cain Scholarship, and earned a B.A. in history and economics. Cooper won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford, where he was a member of Oriel College and earned a B.A./M.A. in politics and economics in 1977. In 1980, he received a J.D. from Harvard Law School.^[9]

After getting his law degree, he spent two years working for the law firm Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP in Nashville, then ran for Congress in 1982.^[10]

U.S. House of Representatives (1983–1995)

Elections

In 1982, Cooper won the Democratic primary for the 4th District, which had been created when Tennessee gained a district after the 1980 census. The new 4th ran diagonally across the state, from heavily Republican areas near Tri-Cities, Knoxville and Chattanooga to the fringes of the Nashville suburbs. The district stretched across five media markets—the Tri-Cities (Kingsport, Johnson City, and Bristol), Knoxville, Chattanooga, Nashville and Huntsville, Alabama—so the 1982 race had much of the feel of a statewide race. Owing to the district's demographics, many felt that whoever won the election would almost instantly become a statewide figure with a high potential for election to statewide office in the future. Cooper defeated Cissy Baker, an editor in Washington for the Cable News Network and the daughter of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker^[11] with 66 percent of the vote.

Cooper was reelected five more times with little substantive opposition, running unopposed in 1986 and 1988. This was somewhat surprising, given the district's volatile demographics. The district was split between areas with strong Democratic and Republican voting histories. Indeed, prior to Cooper's election, much of the eastern portion of the 4th hadn't been represented by a Democrat since the Civil War. On paper, the 4th was not safe for either party. In truth, its size made it very difficult to unseat an incumbent.

Tenure

In 1992 Cooper was co-author of a bipartisan health-care reform plan, that did not include employer mandates compelling universal coverage. This initiative met with strong opposition from Hillary Clinton.^[12]

In 1990, Cooper was one of only three House Democrats who voted against the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.^[13]

Committee assignments

During his first period in Congress, he served on the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce.^[14][15][16]

1994 U.S. Senate election

In 1994, Cooper ran for the Senate seat vacated by Al Gore's election to the Vice Presidency, but was soundly defeated by Republican attorney and actor Fred Thompson. Cooper received just under 40 percent of the vote. It was a bad year overall for Democrats in Tennessee, as Republican Bill Frist captured Tennessee's other Senate seat and Don Sundquist was elected governor. The 4th district seat was also won by a Republican, Van Hilleary, as the GOP gained a majority of the state's congressional delegation for only the second time since Reconstruction.

Inter-congressional years (1995–2003)

After losing his Senate bid, Cooper moved to Nashville and went into private business, also serving as a professor at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management.

U.S. House of Representatives (2003–present)

Elections

2002

When Thompson opted not to run for a second full Senate term in 2002, 5th District Congressman Bob Clement (with whom Cooper had served from 1988 to 1995) ran for Thompson's seat. Cooper entered the Democratic primary along with several other Democrats. Two of whom were Davidson County Sheriff Gayle Ray the first female sheriff in Tennessee and state legislator John Arriola.^[17] Cooper won the primary with 47 percent of the vote and went on to win the general election easily.^[18] The 5th has historically been one of the most Democratic districts in the South, due almost entirely to the presence of heavily Democratic Nashville. The district and its predecessors have been in Democratic hands without interruption since 1875, and the last well-financed Republican bid came in 1972. Cooper thus effectively assured his return to Congress in the Democratic primary. Upon his return to Congress, the Democrats gave him back his seniority.

2004

Cooper was re-elected in 2004 against a Republican who disavowed his party's national ticket.

2006

In the 2006 election, Cooper faced Tom Kovach, the state public relations coordinator for the Constitution Party, who ran as a Republican since the Constitution Party did not have ballot access in Tennessee at the time. No one opposed Kovach for the Republican nomination. Cooper defeated Kovach by 41 points.

2008

On Election Day 2008, Cooper defeated Republican John Gerard Donovan, 68–31%.^[19]

2010

Cooper defeated Republican David Hall, 57–42%.^[20]

2012

The 2010 midterm elections saw Republicans gain complete control of state government for the first time since Reconstruction. This led to speculation that the legislature might try to draw the 5th out from under Cooper. Indeed, in the summer of 2011 Cooper and Nashville Mayor Karl Dean told The Tennessean that they'd heard rumors about Nashville being split between three Republican districts. Despite its large size, Nashville has been located entirely or mostly in a single district since Reconstruction. Cooper said he'd gotten his hands on a map that would have placed his home in Nashville into the heavily Republican 6th District. The 5th would have been reconfigured into a strongly Republican district stretching from Murfreesboro to the Alabama border, while the rest of Nashville would have been placed in the heavily Republican 7th District. Had it been implemented, the map would have left Cooper with only two realistic places to run—an incumbent-versus-incumbent challenge in the 6th against freshman Republican Diane Black, or the reconfigured 5th, which had reportedly been drawn for State Senator and Murfreesboro resident Bill Ketron, chairman of the redistricting committee.^[21] However, the final map was far less ambitious, and actually made the 5th slightly more Democratic than its predecessor. Notably, Cooper picked up all of Nashville.

Cooper defeated B. Staats, 65–33%.^[22]

Tenure

Cooper is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition^[1] and the New Democrat Coalition^[23] and generally has a moderate voting record. Cooper is the only Tennessean on the Armed Services Committee. He also serves on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Despite the different policy affiliation, he became one of Barack Obama's earliest Congressional endorsers.^[24] Cooper opposed an $819 billion economic stimulus plan that passed the House in 2009,^[25] but ended up voting for the revised $787 billion final package.^[26] He is one of only a few Blue Dog members that don't seek earmarks.^[27][28] Cooper voted for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March 2010.^[29] In 2009 the ThinkProgress website reported that a Daily Kos poll "found that 60 percent of his constituents disapprove of his handling of the health care issue."^[30]

In 2009 the Wall Street Journal wrote about Cooper's concerns about the national deficit. "It's even worse than most people think, he says, because of dodgy accounting used by the federal government. ... 'The U.S. government uses cash accounting,' he says. 'That is illegal for any enterprise of any size in America except for the U.S. government.'"^[31] He made similar remarks on PBS, saying that 'The real deficit in America is at least twice as large as any politician will tell you. And it may be ten times larger.'"^[32]

In July 2011, Cooper was one of five Democrats to vote for the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act.^[33]

In 2011, Rep. Cooper became a co-sponsor of Bill H.R.3261 otherwise known as the Stop Online Piracy Act.^[34]

In 2012, Cooper authored the No Budget, No Pay Act which specifies that congressmen would not get paid unless they passed a budget by October 1, 2012.^[35][36][37]

In January 2013, Cooper was the only Democrat in the House to vote against an emergency bill to provide disaster and recovery funds in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.^[38]

In recent cycles, Cooper has consistently voted for someone other than House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to ascend to the Speakership. He cast his vote for Heath Shuler in 2011^[39]. He voted for Colin Powell in 2013^[40], January 2015^[41] and October 2015^[42]. He then voted for Tim Ryan in 2017.^[43] He voted present in 2019.

Criticism of Congress

Cooper spoke with Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig about the subject of reforming Congress.^[45] According to Lessig, Cooper explained that members of Congress were so preoccupied with the question of what they would do after leaving Congress – the most obvious career path being lobbying – that they fell into the habit of thinking about how to serve special interests rather than how to serve the public.^[44] According to Lessig, Cooper described Congress as a "Farm League for K Street".^[44][45]

In 2011, Cooper said: "Working in this Congress is deeply frustrating; in fact, it's enraging. My colleagues are misbehaving. They're posturing for voters back home. They're taking the cheap political hit instead of studying the problem that's before us."^[46] In the same year, Cooper "called the partisan posturing over the debt ceiling 'an extremely dangerous game of chicken,' and said he'd 'never seen politicians act more irresponsibly than they have been recently,' over the nation's debt."^[47]

Cooper was ranked as the 20th most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress (and the most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy that ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship (by measuring the frequency each member's bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and each member's co-sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party).^[48]

Committee assignments

• United States House Committee on Armed Services
  • Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Chairman
  • Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats & Capabilities
  • Subcommittee on Seapower & Projection Forces
• United States House Committee on Oversight and Reform
  • Subcommittee on National Security
• United States House Committee on the Budget

Caucus memberships

• Congressional Arts Caucus^[49]
• Afterschool Caucuses^[50]
• Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus^[51]
• U.S.-Japan Caucus^[52]

Personal life

In 1985 Cooper married Martha Bryan Hayes.^[4] They have three children.^[53] his daughter Mary was the Student Body President at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.^[54]Cooper's son Hayes attends The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his son Jamie graduated from The University of Georgia.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

Cooper's brother, John, serves on the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County.^[55]

References

External links

• Congressman Jim Cooper official House website
• Jim Cooper for Congress
• {{Dmoz|Regional/North_America/United_States/Tennessee/Government/Federal/US_House_of_Representatives/Jim_Cooper_%5BD-5%5D|Jim Cooper}}
• {{CongLinks | congbio=c000754 | votesmart=48891 | fec=H2TN05131 | congress=james-cooper/231 }}
• [https://www.theatlantic.com/jim-cooper/ Column archive] at The Atlantic
• Liberadio(!) audio Interview{{when|date=August 2013}}
• "Jim Cooper Gets the Treatment: A Blue Dog Barks Back" Interview with Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic, April 2, 2009
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/opinion/the-last-moderate.html?src=me&ref=general The Last Moderate], Joe Nocera, The New York Times, September 5, 2011

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