Steve Cohen (politician)

Stephen Ira Cohen (born May 24, 1949) is an American attorney and politician serving as the U.S. representative from TN's 9th congressional district since 2007.

He is a member of the Democratic Party.

The district includes the western three-fourths of Memphis.

Cohen is Tennessee's first Jewish congressman and since 2023 has been the only Democrat in the state's congressional delegation.

Cohen was born in Memphis, Tennessee, on May 24, 1949, the son of Genevieve (née Goldsand) and pediatrician Morris David Cohen.

He has two older brothers, Michael Corey and Martin D. Cohen.

He is a fourth-generation Memphian and a grandson of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Poland.

His immigrant grandfather owned a newsstand.

Cohen contracted polio when he was five, and the disease caused him to shift his attention from sports to politics at an early age.

When he was 11, John F. Kennedy made a campaign stop in Memphis, and Cohen took a picture of Kennedy sitting on a convertible.

Cohen describes Kennedy as his political hero; the picture still hangs in his office.

In 1961, Cohen's family moved to Coral Gables, Florida, where his father took a residency in psychiatry at the University of Miami.

From 1964 to 1966, the Cohens lived in Pasadena, California, where Dr. Cohen completed a fellowship in pediatric psychiatry at the University of Southern California.

Cohen, who had been attending Polytechnic School in Pasadena, returned to Florida in 1966 to graduate from Coral Gables Senior High School before returning to Memphis where his father had established his private psychiatry practice.

Cohen graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

At Vanderbilt, he was a member of the Alpha Gamma chapter of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.

In 1973, he graduated from the Memphis State University College of Law (now the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law) with a Juris Doctor.

Cohen is unmarried and lives in a Midtown neighborhood.

While serving as a legal advisor for the Memphis Police Department from 1975 to 1978, Cohen rose to political prominence when he was elected vice president of the Tennessee Constitutional Convention of 1977 at age 27.

From 1978 to 2006, Cohen was the sole practitioner of his own law firm, practicing civil and criminal law.

Cohen was then elected to serve as a commissioner on the Shelby County Commission, serving from 1978 to 1980.

During his time at the commission, he was instrumental in the creation of The Med, a community-funded regional hospital.

In 1980, Cohen served as an interim Shelby County General Sessions Court judge.

He has also served as a delegate to the 1980, 1992, and 2004 through 2016 Democratic National Conventions.

Cohen was elected to the Tennessee Senate in 1982, representing the 30th district, which includes parts of Memphis.

He held that position for 24 years.

For 18 years, Cohen strove to repeal the ban on lotteries in the Tennessee State Constitution.

He was awarded the Bill of Rights Award from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Bird Dog Award for Ethics from Tennessee Common Cause in 1992.

In 1994, Cohen ran for governor of Tennessee, but finished fifth in the Democratic primary with 4.95% of the vote.

Cohen ran for the United States House of Representatives seat for the 9th district in 1996, when 22-year incumbent Harold Ford, Sr. retired.

His efforts were successful in 2002, and a state lottery program designed to provide college scholarships for Tennessee students was adopted the following year.

The nominee, Phil Bredesen, lost the general election to U.S. Representative Don Sundquist, but succeeded Sundquist in 2003.

In March 2005, Cohen was one of three members of the Tennessee Senate to vote against the Tennessee Marriage Protection Amendment, which prohibited same-sex marriage statewide and was approved by Tennessee voters via a referendum in November 2006.

During debate on the amendment, he offered several amendments to it, all of which failed, including the proposed addition of an "adultery clause", which said, "Adultery is deemed to be a threat to the institution of marriage and contrary to public policy in Tennessee."

Cohen won the Political Leadership Award from the Human Rights Campaign.

He has won six awards from the Humane Society as of 2011.

Cohen sponsored and passed legislation providing funding for the construction of the Autozone Park baseball stadium, creating the Holocaust Commission, and providing permanent funding for the arts with Tennesseans for the Arts license plates.

The lottery program is the best-known accomplishment of Cohen's Senate career, having raised over $2 billion for scholarships, afterschool programs, pre-K, technical center grants, and energy-saving capital programs in K-12 schools as of 2012.

Cohen also sponsored legislation relating to expansion of community access to healthcare, protection of animal rights, reinstatement of voting rights, graduated driver licenses, and funding for the arts.

He sponsored the T-Bo law, the nation's first-ever statute providing for damages up to $5,000 in cases of intentional or negligent acts resulting in the death of a companion dog or cat.