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WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) wrote to Attorney General William Barr Thursday asking him to investigate the recent fire at the Highlander Education and Research Center in New Market, Tennessee, for possible violations of federal law. Press accounts indicate a racist symbol, identical to one used by the mass murderer of mosque worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand, last month, was spray-painted at the sight of the Highlander fire.

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, led a letter to House Appropriation Committee leaders, signed by 40 of his House colleagues, asking them to include language prohibiting the use of federal funds at businesses owned in whole or in part by President Trump in the annual spending bills for the next fiscal year beginning October 1. See the full letter here.

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, today voted for, and the House passed, the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (VAWA), which preserves and improves protections for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. The vote was 263 to 158.

Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) today remembered the April 4, 1968 assassination of Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Dr. King was in Memphis to help 1,300 striking sanitation workers and was shot by an assassin. The whole world mourned the death of the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Congressman Cohen made the following statement:

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), a Member of the bicameral U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (known as The Helsinki Commission), today made the following statement commemorating the 70^th Anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

"NATO remains the most important and critical security link between the United States and Europe. NATO allies and partners in both Central and Eastern Europe have stood alongside the United States in joint peace operations in the Western Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.

WASHINGTON -- Today, Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) voted to pass H. Res. 271, a resolution condemning the Trump Administration's participation in the Texas v. U.S. health care lawsuit seeking to strike down protections for people with pre-existing conditions and the entirety of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and calling on the Department of Justice to reverse its position in the case. The resolution was adopted on a 240 to 186 vote.

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09), chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, today voted to authorize the use of subpoena power to compel the Department of Justice to release Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report to Congress. The vote in the Judiciary Committee was 24 to 17.

WASHINGTON – Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI), Dick Durbin (D-IL) Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), introduced a Senate companion to Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Congressman Steve Cohen's proposed constitutional amendment (H.J.Res 7), which would eliminate the Electoral College and provide for the direct election of the President and Vice President of the United States.