Judiciary

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and a longtime member of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, today voted for the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act, removing marijuana from the list of scheduled substances under the Controlled Substances Act. The bill would also establish a method of expunging criminal records for marijuana-related offenses which are often an impediment to employment.
The vote on passage was 228 to 164.
In a statement released after the vote, Congressman Cohen said:

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, today condemned President Trump's pardon of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn with the following statement:

WASHINGTON -- Congressman Cohen (TN-09) today was elected by the Region VII Delegation as its representative on the powerful Democratic Steering and Policy Committee for the 117th Congress that convenes in January. Region VII encompasses Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Congressman Cohen served as the Region VII Steering and Policy Committee representative in the 116th Congress and, in the 115th Congress, served on the Committee as the appointee of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

MEMPHIS -- Congressman Steve Cohen released the following statement commemorating this year's Veterans Day:
"Each November, we pause to pay special tribute to the brave men and women who have served our country in uniform. This year, we also commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and cherish our few remaining heroes of that conflict.

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties which has jurisdictional oversight of voting rights, joined Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18) and several Congressional colleagues in asking FBI Director Christopher Wray to conduct criminal investigations into complaints of vote suppression in the November 3 election.

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee and its Crime Subcommittee, today announced a $488,594 grant to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to discourage gang membership and address the traumas associated with exposure to gang violence.
Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today urged constituents who have received absentee mail-in ballots to take them to the Bartlett Post Office and drop them in the dropbox. With just days before this Tuesday's November 3 election, Congressman Cohen is concerned that the U.S. Post Office might not be able to deliver mailed-in ballots from remote locations in time to be counted.
Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, applauded today's commutation of the life sentence being served by 70-year-old Curtis McDonald but urged President Trump to use a more systematic approach to release thousands of similarly situated non-violent offenders before he leaves office.
Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

MEMPHIS – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, today announced a Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Assistance National Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) grant of $2 million to the City of Memphis. Over the past decade, Congressman Cohen has been a leader in efforts to increase spending under the initiative, and Memphis has receive substantial resources under the program. At its peak, the rape kit backlog reached 12,000 untested kits in Memphis alone with an estimated 400,000 sitting in evidence rooms nationwide.

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties with jurisdiction over voting rights, today condemned vote-suppression efforts in Texas and Pennsylvania aimed helping President Trump just a month before the November 3 election.