Jim Cooper
On June 26, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill granting statehood to Washington, D.C. It was the first time a chamber of the United States Congress has passed such a bill for the nation’s capital. The last time D.C. statehood came up for a vote in Congress was in 1993, and Rep. Jim Cooper — then a representative from Tennessee’s 4th Congressional District — voted no, with the majority. This time he was in the majority again, but this time he voted yes.
Days later, a mailer from the Cooper for Congress campaign began showing up in mailboxes around the 5th Congressional District, the Middle Tennessee area anchored by Nashville that Cooper has represented since 2003. The mail piece touted Cooper’s long-standing practice of giving out his personal cellphone number. It even included the number (615-714-1719) prominently on both sides. But it also featured a photo of the congressman speaking with four Black constituents, including former Metro Councilmember Erica Gilmore. Among other messages, one statement appeared under the heading “Ending Systemic Racism.”
“Nashvillians from all backgrounds have come together to call for an end to systemic racism,” the mailer reads. “Jim Cooper will bring our calls to end racial profiling, hold law enforcement accountable and reimagine policing to Congress.”
A subsequent mail piece featured an endorsement from Davidson County Clerk Brenda Wynn, the first African American elected to a constitutional office in the county’s history.
Then, on July 5, Cooper posted several photos on Twitter that showed him marching in the previous day’s Black Lives Matter demonstration organized by the newly and rightly famous Teens for Equality.
“Yesterday, I joined thousands of Tennesseans in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement,” Cooper wrote. “Inaction and indifference towards racism is unacceptable, and Nashville couldn’t be luckier to have inspiring leaders like @teens_4equality.”
In decades of representing the Nashville area as a Blue Dog Democrat — that is, a moderate — Cooper has not developed a reputation that would suggest opposition to the ongoing protest movement. He has not been seen as an opponent of racial equality. But these issues have never been central to his brand as a politician, nor a particular point of consistent emphasis for him as a member of the U.S. Congress. The recent messaging from his campaign has not been subtle, and it certainly caught the attention of longtime local Democrats and insiders — including his former campaign manager Taylor Walker, who replied to Cooper’s tweet from the march by saying: “WHAT TOOK SO LONG?”
They read one obvious conclusion between the lines: This is a man with a primary challenge, specifically a primary challenge by a Black woman from his left.
Her name is Keeda Haynes. A lifelong Middle Tennessean, Haynes became a public defender after a five-year stint in federal prison on drug-related charges of which she has always maintained her innocence. (She was the subject of a 2016 Scene cover story.) Haynes was one of several local Black activists and community organizers considered by Justice Democrats, the national progressive group that has backed a number of primary challenges against incumbent moderate Democrats. Ultimately, Justice Democrats decided against putting resources into a primary challenge against Cooper. But Haynes has nevertheless attracted support that has solidified her as Cooper’s first legitimate Democratic challenger in memory. She has been endorsed by state Sen. Brenda Gilmore, who served on the Metro Council for 10 years and has been at the state legislature since 2003, and Abby Rubenfeld, the Nashville civil rights attorney who represented the Tennessee plaintiffs in the 2015 marriage equality case decided by the United States Supreme Court. Local chapters of national progressive groups Indivisible, Sunrise Movement and Our Revolution have backed Haynes, as has the national organization Democracy for America.
Keeda Haynes
But Haynes and Cooper are not the only Democrats on the primary ballot. Joshua Rawlings is running too, although he previously ran as a Republican and has only voted in Republican primaries. He has not gained much traction.
In a Zoom call from his home in Nashville, Cooper calls the first half of 2020 “one of the craziest and one of the scariest times in American history.” He cites the March tornado that tore through the city, and the deadly mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic by Trump, whom Cooper calls “the worst president in American history.” Of everything going on, he says, ”probably the most important, history-making one is Black Lives Matter, because that’s the final long-awaited stage of the civil rights movement.”
Asked why he thinks he’s facing a primary challenge now, he suggests it’s a matter of outsized focus on a small amount of differences.
“The most important thing to remember is we’re all on the same team,” he says. “We’re all Democrats. I have a 95 percent voting record with the Democratic party. That’s an A by most any standard, but it’s easy to focus on the 4 or 5 percent, but it’s most important to remember the 95 percent.”
Haynes has argued repeatedly that it’s not enough for Cooper to be on the righteous side of many issues on paper. His moderate approach has long been a source of consternation for local progressives who have found him generally likable but frustratingly disinterested or slow to take up some of the causes they care about most.
“We don’t need people that are gonna wait for the party to start, we need people that’s gonna start the party,” Haynes says during a phone interview with the Scene. “That’s just not what we have with our current representative now. The issues that people are most concerned about in the community are not issues that he actively advocates for, that he actively takes a stand on, and if he gets involved at all, it’s because he’s been late to the party. We can’t afford that anymore.”
In the middle of a national reckoning with the legacy of racism and the grooves it has dug into American society, Haynes says it’s time to center Black voices.
“I believe that those of us that are closest to the problems are the ones that are closest to the solutions,” she says.
That line of thinking also applies to her views on the criminal justice system. Between her personal experience as a formerly incarcerated person and her time as a public defender, it’s a topic she says she can discuss “all day long.” Among the policies she advocates on her campaign website are the repeal of mandatory minimum sentences, the legalization of marijuana at the federal level, the restoration of voting rights and the abolition of the federal death penalty.
Haynes says she supports the idea of taking money from police departments and reallocating those funds to other areas of the community that contribute to public safety in different ways. She also cites U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee’s recent proposal to take the same approach to the country’s enormous military budget.
Asked what he would point to in his 30-plus-year congressional career that falls under the category of working to end systemic racism, Cooper cites a bill passed by the House last month.
“The most important police reform act in U.S. history just passed a couple weeks ago,” he says. “The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. That does several things that are absolutely historic — bans chokeholds, bans warrantless searches, it ends qualified immunity for police officers. It also prevents bad officers from getting fired in one department and going to work in another department.”
But before this year?
“Well, I have an excellent civil rights voting record,” he says. “And I’ve avoided some of the mistakes that, for example, Joe Biden made in his career. He championed the 1994 crime bill. I voted against it.”
The congressmember says he has a very diverse staff and “the best intern program in Washington to help develop new talent.” He also highlights the work his office has done consistently over the years to register young voters, even holding registration events at area high schools. He supports automatic voter registration. He has also supported raising the minimum wage.
“That might sound minor, but so many of the most vulnerable people in our society hold those jobs,” Cooper says.
There would seem to be little doubt that the future of the Democratic party looks more like Keeda Haynes than Jim Cooper.
“Well, I won’t point out that the same charges could be leveled at the media and at journalists like you,” he says when asked why a white man is still the right person to represent the district. This is true, but not actually an answer to the question.
He goes on: “The voters of the Nashville area have had a chance every two years to judge my work, and their approval has been amazing, and for many years.”
Cooper says the suggestion that things like his recent appearance at a Black Lives Matter march are motivated by campaign pressure is unfair.
“Well, I think that’s a cheap shot,” he says. “I think if people had paid attention they would have seen me at the Women’s March, they would’ve seen me at the March for Science, they would have seen me at many other marches in Nashville. Now, it is true, I’m often in Washington, so I’m not able to attend every local event. It’s also true that I have duties with my wife on the weekends — she has Alzheimer’s, and so far we’ve been unable to get as much help on the weekends. But I participate to the fullest extent of my ability.”
Haynes’ challenge is to convince Middle Tennessee Democrats that the man they’ve spent decades voting for, a man they largely like, is no longer right for the job. “There are people who are loyal to the Democratic Party and that are loyal to the Democratic establishment,” she says.
“If you’re gonna publicly support Keeda Haynes right now, you have to consent to never talking to Lisa Quigley at a party again,” says one Democratic operative, noting widespread reluctance to cross Cooper or his veteran chief of staff.
But Haynes also says she’s encountered many voters who recognize “that he really no longer is the right fit for this moment in history.”
“It doesn’t take away from who he is,” Haynes says. “I don’t know him personally, and some people say, ‘Oh, well he’s a nice man,’ and he very well may be. But is nice what we’re looking for now? Is a ‘nice man’ what we need now in this moment to help move this country forward?”
