Jim Cooper | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2013 | |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee | |
| In office January 3, 2003 – January 3, 2023 | |
| Preceded by | Bob Clement |
| Succeeded by | Andy Ogles |
| Constituency | 5th district |
| In office January 3, 1983 – January 3, 1995 | |
| Preceded by | Redistricted |
| Succeeded by | Van Hilleary |
| Constituency | 4th district |
| Personal details | |
| Born | James Hayes Shofner Cooper June 19, 1954 Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouses | Martha Hayes
(m. 1985; died 2021)Mary Falls (m. 2022) |
| Children | 3 |
| Relatives | Prentice Cooper (father) John Cooper (brother) |
| Education | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (BA) Oriel College, Oxford (MA) Harvard University (JD) |
James Hayes Shofner Cooper (born June 19, 1954) is an American lawyer, businessman, professor, and politician who served as the U.S. representative for Tennessee's 5th congressional district (based in Nashville and containing parts of Davidson, Cheatham, and Dickson Counties) from 2003 to 2023. He is a Southern Democrat and was a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, and represented Tennessee's 4th congressional district from 1983 to 1995.[1] His district included all of Nashville. He chaired the United States House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the House Armed Services Committee, and sat on the Committee on Oversight and Reform, United States House Committee on the Budget, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, more committees than any other member of Congress. At the end of his tenure, he was also the dean of Tennessee's congressional delegation. Cooper is the third-longest serving member of Congress ever from Tennessee, after Jimmy Quillen and B. Carroll Reece.
Due to Cooper's rare split tenure in Congress in two entirely different districts, his career was divided in two fields: regulatory and health care legislation in the rural 4th district and military affairs in the urban 5th.
Cooper built seniority and respect on two different sets of committees, becoming what The New York Times op-ed writer Joe Nocera called "the conscience of the House, a lonely voice for civility in this ugly era."[2]
Cooper announced that he would not seek reelection in 2022 after accusing Tennessee's Republican-led state legislature of partisan gerrymandering in the redistricting cycle.[3] The new congressional map, which split Davidson County into 3 separate districts, turned TN-5 from a Democratic-leaning seat into a Republican one. Cooper was succeeded by Republican Andy Ogles.
- ^ "Members". Blue Dog Coalition. Archived from the original on June 30, 2019. Retrieved February 7, 2018.
- ^ Nocera, Joe (September 6, 2011). "Opinion | The Last Moderate". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 1, 2022.
- ^ Renkl, Margaret (January 31, 2022). "Opinion | Republicans 'Have Chosen to Wreck the Nashville District'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 1, 2022.