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Steve Cohen (politician)

Stephen Ira Cohen (born May 24, 1949) is an American attorney and politician serving as the U.S. representative from Tennessee'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.[1]

Steve Cohen

Jim White

Stephen Ira Cohen

(1949-05-24) May 24, 1949
Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.

Early life and education[edit]

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.[2][3] He is a fourth-generation Memphian[4] and a grandson of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Poland.[5] His immigrant grandfather owned a newsstand.[6] Cohen contracted polio when he was five, and the disease caused him to shift his attention from sports to politics at an early age.[4] 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.[6]


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.[7] 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.[2] Cohen is unmarried and lives in a Midtown neighborhood.[8]

Committee on the Judiciary

Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice

Committee on Natural Resources

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

Subcommittee on Aviation

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee

List of Jewish members of the United States Congress

official U.S. House website

Congressman Steve Cohen

Steve Cohen for Congress

at Curlie

Steve Cohen