Judiciary
WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, today voted for and the House passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, making lynching for the first time a federal crime. Emmett Till was a Chicago teenager lynched in Money, Mississippi, not far south of Memphis, in 1955.
The vote was 422 to 3.
WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, today praised President Biden's historic selection of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for the U.S. Supreme Court. She would be the first Black woman and the first former federal public defender on the Supreme Court.
MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today led a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland with 16 other Members of Congress asking the Department of Justice to reinstate integrated employment guidance that was rescinded by Trump Administration Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The guidance outlines state and local governments' obligations to administer employment services in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Supreme Court's landmark 1999 Olmstead v.
MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) applauded the Senate Judiciary Committee's vote this morning to advance the nomination of Memphis lawyer Andre Mathis to become a judge on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The vote was 12-10.
The court, based in Cincinnati, hears appeals in federal cases from Tennessee, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio.
WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, today reintroduced the Fresh Start Act, a bill to permit the expungement of the records of certain non-violent offenses.
Congressman Cohen made the following statement:
WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, today presided at a hearing "Examining the History and Importance of ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing' " and H.R. 301, a bill introduced by House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina that would make the song America's national hymn.
WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, today questioned expert witnesses at a hearing entitled "Respecting Artists with the American Music Fairness Act."
MEMPHIS -- Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today released the following statement to commemorate Black History Month, which is observed each February:
MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and Chairman of its Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, today condemned the recent vandalization of a monument to Major League Baseball's first Black player, civil rights pioneer Jackie Robinson, at his birthplace in southwest Georgia.
MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and its Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, today questioned expert witnesses at a hearing entitled "The First Step Act, The Pandemic, and Compassionate Release: What Are the Next Steps for the Federal Bureau of Prisons?"