In the News

Insurmountable student loan debt has been making headlines in recent years, but it’s not news to Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN). While a state senator in Tennessee, Cohen learned of the plight of a former intern who was in burdened with student loan debt. “I saw that and realized how unfair it was,” Cohen told Blue Nation Review. “It was stifling her life and her advancement.”

Cohen was one of the main architects of the Hope Lottery Scholarship, which has raised over $2 billion to help Tennessee students pay for college since it began in 2003.

The Memphis Health Center has received a federal grant worth more than $3.7 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration.

The funding will be used to help fund the Memphis Health Center, which provides affordable health care services to Shelby County residents.

Ferguson. Cleveland. Staten Island. North Charleston. Baltimore.

These are not just instances of police brutality. The problem is deeper than that. We have a flawed criminal justice system urgently in need of reform.

Cases involving police use of deadly force should be investigated by an independent prosecutor instead of local prosecuting attorneys who often work closely with law-enforcement officers and thus have a conflict of interest, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen said Wednesday.

Cohen, a Memphis Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay, D-Mo., filed legislation that seeks to push state and local governments to require independent investigations and prosecutions into allegations of deadly police force. The lawmakers say the legislation would provide justice to victims of police violence.

Michele Leonhart, the longtime leader of the Drug Enforcement Administration, is reportedly preparing to resign after nearly two dozen House lawmakers questioned her competence in handling an agency sex scandal.

Twenty-two members of the House oversight committee, including the panel’s Republican and Democratic leaders, said last week they had lost confidence in her leadership after the revelation that DEA agents weren't fired for participating in sex parties involving prostitutes that were paid for by drug cartel members.

Thursday, U.S. Congressman Steve Cohen introduced two bills that aim at boosting the development of aerotropolis transportation systems in Memphis and throughout the country.

Aerotropolis refers to the perspective of urban development focused on promoting diverse development surrounding airports.

Racial profiling is an injustice and Congress must put an end to it, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen said Wednesday as a bill he is co-sponsoring was introduced in Congress.

“From the biased use of ‘stop and frisk’ policies to the impact of unfair mandatory minimum sentences on minority communities, there is widespread evidence that racial disparities pervade our criminal justice system,” the Memphis Democrat said.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) on Tuesday related his personal experience with polio to urge Americans to vaccinate their children.

Cohen related the story of his father, a physician, giving shots to second grade children as part of testing for the polio vaccine in 1954. His father had decided not to give the shot to anyone not in second grade - and Cohen, then in kindergarten, consequently didn't get the vaccine.