James Hayes Shofner Cooper was born on June 19,1954 and is an American lawyer, businessman, professor, and politician who served as the US representative for from 2003 to 2023.
45 Facts About Jim Cooper
2.
Jim Cooper is a member of the Democratic Party and was a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, and represented from 1983 to 1995.
3.
Jim Cooper 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.
4.
Jim Cooper announced that he would not seek reelection in 2022 after accusing Tennessee's post-2020 Census redistricting cycle of partisan gerrymandering that he said would effectively eliminate his Democratic-leaning district to create another Republican seat.
5.
Jim Cooper was born in Nashville and raised in Shelbyville, Tennessee.
6.
Jim Cooper is the son of former governor Prentice Cooper and his wife Hortense.
7.
The Jim Cooper family owns the River Side Farmhouse, built for his great-great-grandfather, Jacob Morton Shofner, in 1890; the Gov.
8.
Prentice Jim Cooper House, built for his grandfather in 1904; and the 1866 Absalom Lowe Landis House in Normandy, Tennessee, all of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
9.
In 1982, Jim Cooper won the Democratic primary for the 4th district, which had been created when Tennessee gained a district after the 1980 census.
10.
Jim Cooper was reelected five more times with little substantive opposition, running unopposed in 1986 and 1988.
11.
In 1992, Jim Cooper co-authored a bipartisan health-care reform plan that did not include employer mandates compelling universal coverage.
12.
In 1990, Jim Cooper was one of only three House Democrats to vote against the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
13.
In 1994, Jim Cooper ran for the Senate seat vacated by Al Gore's election to the Vice Presidency in 1992, but lost to Republican attorney and actor Fred Thompson.
14.
Jim Cooper served as an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management until 2015.
15.
Jim Cooper entered the 5th district Democratic primary along with several other candidates, including Davidson County Sheriff Gayle Ray, Tennessee's first female sheriff, and state legislator John Arriola.
16.
Jim Cooper said he had seen a map that would have put his Nashville home in the heavily Republican 6th district.
17.
Notably, Jim Cooper picked up all of Nashville; previously, a sliver of southwestern Nashville had been in the 7th.
18.
Jim Cooper was challenged in the Democratic primary by public defender Keeda Haynes, Justin Jones, and former Republican Joshua Rawlings, though Jones withdrew before the primary.
19.
In 2012, Jim Cooper created the Golden Goose Award to recognize the human and economic benefits of federally funded research.
20.
Jim Cooper, known as "Father Goose", was honored at the 2022 Golden Goose Award Ceremony.
21.
On January 25,2022, Jim Cooper announced he would not run for reelection and would retire from Congress.
22.
Jim Cooper made the decision due to the state legislature's controversial move to split Davidson County into three congressional districts in an attempt to gerrymander another Republican district.
23.
Jim Cooper was a member of the Blue Dog Coalition and the New Democrat Coalition, and he had a generally moderate voting record.
24.
Jim Cooper served on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
25.
Jim Cooper opposed an $819 billion economic stimulus plan that passed the House in 2009, but ended up voting for the revised $787 billion final package.
26.
Jim Cooper is one of only a few Blue Dog members not to seek earmarks.
27.
Jim Cooper voted for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in March 2010.
28.
In 2006, Jim Cooper persuaded Nelson Current publishers to issue The Financial Report of the United States: The Official Report the White House Does Not Want You to Read, for which he wrote the introduction.
29.
In 2011, Jim Cooper was one of five Democrats to vote for the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, and co-sponsored the Stop Online Piracy Act.
30.
In 2012, Jim Cooper authored the No Budget, No Pay Act, which specified that members of Congress would not be paid unless they passed a budget by October 1,2012.
31.
Jim Cooper created the Golden Goose Award to honor the benefits of government-funded scientific research with an annual award ceremony at the Library of Congress.
32.
In January 2013, Jim Cooper was the only Democrat in the House to vote against an emergency bill to provide additional disaster and recovery funds in the wake of Hurricane Sandy after supporting the initial $30 billion in relief.
33.
In recent cycles, Jim Cooper has consistently voted for someone other than Nancy Pelosi for speaker.
34.
Jim Cooper cast his vote for Heath Shuler in 2011, Colin Powell in 2013, January 2015 and October 2015, and for Tim Ryan in 2017.
35.
In 2021, Jim Cooper broke his streak and voted for Pelosi.
36.
In 2017, Jim Cooper worked with Republican Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama on a proposal to establish a Space Corps under the Department of the Air Force.
37.
On December 18,2019, Cooper voted for both articles of impeachment against President Donald J Trump.
38.
On January 13,2021, Jim Cooper voted for the second impeachment of Donald Trump.
39.
Jim Cooper served on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee and was one of the top Democrats in charge of both nuclear weapons and military satellites for many years.
40.
Jim Cooper was one of few Democrats who supported the Space Development Agency, to build space-based deterrence.
41.
Jim Cooper and his Republican counterpart, Doug Lamborn, wrote "Let's Correct a Misperception about Nuclear Modernization" for Defense One.
42.
Jim Cooper spoke with Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig about reforming Congress.
43.
Jim Cooper was ranked the 20th most bipartisan member of the House during the 114th United States Congress in the Lugar Center and McCourt School of Public Policy's Bipartisan Index, which ranks members of Congress by bipartisanship.
44.
In 2022, Jim Cooper was one of 16 Democrats to vote against the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act of 2022, an antitrust package that would crack down on corporations for anti-competitive behavior.
45.
Jim Cooper was married to Martha Bryan Hays, an ornithologist, from 1985 until her death from Alzheimer's disease in 2021 at age 66.