9th District

[WASHINGTON, DC] – Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, today commended President Obama’s commutation of the sentences of 95 individuals serving lengthy federal prison sentences for non-violent crimes. Under current federal law, many of these prisoners would have already completed their sentences and been freed. Their continued incarceration costs taxpayers an estimated $30,000 per year, per prisoner.

[WASHINGTON, DC] – Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) today hailed the inclusion of an additional $4 million in the final Omnibus Fiscal Year 2016 spending bill for local law enforcement agencies working to reduce their backlogs of untested rape kits. The additional $4 million was added earlier this year via an amendment offered by Congressman Cohen and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney.

[WASHINGTON, DC] – The House of Representatives today, by a vote of 419-1, passed Congressman Steve Cohen’s (TN-09) bipartisan National Guard and Reservists Debt Relief Extension Act of 2015, H.R. 4246, to ensure that certain members of the National Guard and Reserves who fall on hard economic times after their military service will continue to obtain bankruptcy relief without having to fill out the substantial paperwork required by the so-called "means test" under chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code. The bill extends the existing “means test” exception until 2019.

[WASHINGTON, DC] – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) today introduced the bipartisan National Guard and Reservists Debt Relief Extension Act of 2015 to ensure that certain members of the National Guard and Reserves who fall on hard economic times after their military service will continue to obtain bankruptcy relief without having to fill out the substantial paperwork required by the so-called "means test" under chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code.

[WASHINGTON, DC] – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, today released the following statement after the Department of Justice announced that it, in tandem with its Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would conduct a comprehensive review of the Darrius Stewart shooting.

[WASHINGTON, DC] – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a member of the House-Senate Conference Committee for the federal highway funding bill and a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, today hailed the House passage of H.R. 22, the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act), a bipartisan, long-term surface transportation bill. The FAST Act provides $305 billion in guaranteed funding for America’s transportation and infrastructure programs over five years. It also reauthorizes the Export-Import Bank for four years.