Jim Cooper
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 member of the Democratic Party 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.
For other people with the same name, see Jim Cooper (disambiguation).
Jim Cooper
Redistricted
3
Prentice Cooper (father)
John Cooper (brother)
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.
Early life, education, and legal career[edit]
Cooper was born in Nashville and raised in Shelbyville, Tennessee.[4] He is the son of former governor Prentice Cooper and his wife Hortense (Powell).[5] His paternal grandfather, William Prentice Cooper, served as mayor of Shelbyville and speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives.[6] The Cooper family owns the River Side Farmhouse, built for his great-great-grandfather, Jacob Morton Shofner, in 1890;[7] the Gov. Prentice Cooper House, built for his grandfather in 1904;[8] and the 1866 Absalom Lowe Landis House in Normandy, Tennessee, all of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[9]
Cooper attended the Episcopal boys' boarding school Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts,[10] and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a member of the Alpha Sigma Chapter of the Chi Psi fraternity, received the Morehead-Cain Scholarship, and earned a B.A. in history with highest honors and honors in economics in three years. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford, where he was a member of Oriel College and earned a B.A./M.A. in philosophy, politics and economics in 1977. In 1980, he received a J.D. from Harvard Law School.[11]
Cooper spent two years working for the law firm Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP in Nashville, and then ran for Congress in 1982.[12]
Inter-congressional years (1995–2003)[edit]
After losing his Senate bid, Cooper moved to Nashville and became an investment banker at Equitable Securities. Later, he co-founded Brentwood Capital Advisors, a boutique investment bank based in Nashville. He also served as an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management until 2015.[21]
Post-government career[edit]
As of 2024, Cooper serves on the advisory board of the National Security Space Association.[80]