Who is Jim Cooper?

American politician James Hayes Shofner Cooper has held the position of US congressman for Tennessee’s 5th congressional district since 2003. 

Cooper ran for re-election, but he did not appear on the ballot for the Democratic primary on Aug. 4.

He served as the 4th congressional district’s representative for Tennessee from 1983 to 1995. He is in the most no. of committees than any other member of the Congress. Due to partisan gerrymandering in Tennessee’s post-2020 Census redistricting cycle, Cooper declared he will not run for reelection in 2022. 

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Cooper was born June 19, 1954 in Nashville and raised in Shelbyville, Tennessee. The former governor Prentice Cooper and his wife Hortense are his parents (Powell). Cooper attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as well as the Episcopal boys’ residential school Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts. In three years, he completed a B.A. in history with the highest honours and a B.A. in economics with honours. He received a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford, where he joined Oriel College and graduated in 1977 with a B.A./M.A. in philosophy, politics, and economics. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1980 with a J.D. Prior to running for Congress in 1982, Cooper worked at Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP in Nashville for two years.

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Cooper unsuccessfully sought the Senate seat left open by Al Gore’s election as Vice President in 1992. He was defeated by Republican lawyer and actor Fred Thompson.

He is a member of the Democratic Party and the Blue Dog Coalition. His voting history is typically considered moderate. Despite having policy differences, he ended up supporting Barack Obama in Congress at an early stage. Cooper voted for the amended $787 billion final deal while being against the $819 billion economic stimulus programme that was approved by the House in 2009. In March 2010, Cooper cast a vote in favour of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

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Cooper proposed the No Budget, No Pay Act in 2012, which said that Congressmen would not be paid until a budget was approved by October 1, 2012. In 2015, it was amended and made into law. Cooper collaborated with Alabama Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican, on a plan to create a Space Corps under the Department of the Air Force in 2017. The House approved of this measure, but the Senate rejected it. A bill with substantially similar language was signed into law two years later, establishing the United States Space Force.

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He is a member of the following committees:

1. United States House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the House Armed Services Committee

2. Committee on Oversight and Reform

3. United States House Committee on the Budget

4. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

He is also the dean of Tennessee’s congressional delegation. After Jimmy Quillen and B. Carroll Reece, he is the Tennessee congressman with the third-longest tenure.