Steve Cohen of Tennessee’s 9th won’t be seeking re-election – plus, Virginia’s recent redistricting history
I confess I was unaware of Steve Cohen before a couple of days ago, despite the fact that he’s been representing Tennesse’s 9th district in the US House for 19 years. The 9th has been a majority-minority district, but now that the state is being redistricted, he’s announced he’s not seeking re-election.
Cohen’s a few days short of his 77th birthday. Not a bad time to retire – but until the redistricting was announced, he wasn’t retiring; he was running for re-election. He’s also a white man who has represented a gerrymandered black district for all those years, with no serious challenges.
But even before dropping out, this year Cohen faced a Democrat challenger who might have threatened him: Justin Pearson, who is young, black, and to the left of Cohen (see this).
Now Cohen’s seat is also threatened for the first time by someone from the right – a black Republican woman named Charlotte Bergmann.
Black Republican woman? Isn’t that an oxymoron, according to Democrats? After all, black Republicans are just white supremacists.
In addition, as was virtually inevitable, SCOTUS has refused to hear the Democrats’ appeal of the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling that its recent referendum on redistricting was held in violation of the Virginia state constitution. That’s because SCOTUS ordinarily doesn’t have jurisdiction over cases that involve state courts interpreting state law – which explains the fact that the SCOTUS decision was unanimous. The Virginia lawyers and AG who were in charge of the appeal knew that (it’s really quite elementary), so they probably filed the appeal in order to use the SCOTUS ruling to rail against SCOTUS as an “undemocratic” institution and to support the Democrats’ fight to pack the Court if they gain power. To wit:
In a statement following the Supreme Court’s denial, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones went on offense. He framed the decision as part of a broader national effort by Republicans and conservative courts to consolidate political power ahead of the 2026 midterms. Jones accused President Donald Trump, Republican-led legislatures, and the judiciary of systematically undermining voting rights, particularly for black voters and communities of color, arguing that recent redistricting battles across multiple states reflected a coordinated strategy to entrench Republican control in Congress. He characterized both the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling and the nation’s highest court’s refusal to intervene as direct assaults on democratic representation and the will of Virginia voters.
The decision in the Virginia court rested on the Virginia constitution, in particular an amendment passed in 2020 to ensure that the state didn’t gerrymander. The 6-5 map that controls at present – the one the Democrats tried to overturn – was constructed in order to not be partisan, as the 2020 amendment dictated (the article is from 2020):
As votes for the 2020 General Election continue to get counted, it is clear that Virginia’s amendment to reform gerrymandering has passed. Campaign Legal Center (CLC) has been a leading national advocate for the passage of this amendment, supporting local partner OneVirginia 2021 throughout the process.
“Voters have said loud and clear that they are ready to move past Virginia’s long history of gerrymandering,” said Paul Smith, vice president of Campaign Legal Center (CLC). “After a sustained effort by a diverse coalition of national and in-state groups, legislators and the electorate have both proven that bipartisan solutions are possible when democratic principles are placed over partisanship. Paired with strong enabling legislation, the amendment will help Virginia adopt fair maps and a more inclusive process.”
Virginia will have a new 16-member commission, made up of eight legislators and eight citizens, divided evenly between the two parties. There will be measures in place to ensure public feedback and transparency.
It turned out, however, that the commission members ended up unable to agree on the new maps in a timely fashion, so the Virginia Supreme Court took over and appointed two masters to draw the maps. Those are the ones in operation now, the ones the Democrats tried to gerrymander again. They would have been successful, too, had they had enough time to comply with the constitutional requirements for holding the referendum.
Headline reads “Virginia’s” but wants to read “Tennessee’s “
sdferr:
Of course, will fix, thanks.
Steve Cohen typifies the worst Democratic features, a white only seeming to cater to blacks. Must remember that Memphis, the hub of FedEx, is 60% black.
Maybe they would have been successful if they complied with the timing requirements—-but maybe they wouldn’t. The Democrats would have been successful if three events occurred: (1) the 1.3 million voters who voted in the election prior to the announcement of the gerrymandering voted the same; (2) the “are you still beating your spouse” wording of the resolution was held to be constitutional (spoiler alert–it wasn’t–had the resolution been expressed as changing from a non-partisan process to a highly partisan process calculated to give the 52% of the Virginia voters who voted Democrat in the 2024 presidential election 91% of the commonwealth’s congressional seats compared with the 55% under the non-partisan map, the results may have changed–contrary to the ballot language, the resolution had nothing whatsoever to do with “fairness”); and (3) the gerrymander that spread the deep state denizens of Fairfax county over several congressional districts was held to comply with the Virginia constitution.
I’m just thankful you didn’t post Cohen’s photo. He’s about the creepiest of the creepy Congresscritters…You could use his pic to scare the kids on Halloween.
Good riddance.
he could be gollums brother from another mother, of course, my memory of steve cohen, goes back nearly twenty years, to old talking points,
it seems whatever the ethnicity the dems pick the worst candidates,
In another Trump victory, rino Senator Bill. Cassidy of Louisiana loses his primary.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/16/cassidy-loses-louisiana-senate-primary-00925399
Massie next.
@ Neo > “He’s also a white man who has represented a gerrymandered black district for all those years, with no serious challenges.”
This was the factoid that stunned me, and pointed up the blatant hypocrisy of all of this gerrymandering to allegedly “increase the participation” of the “oppressed” minority in the “democratic” process to “represent” their interests.
And yet in 20 years the Party couldn’t find a BLACK Democrat in this district to support, and the black voters didn’t protest, or didn’t even care??
At least Clyburn is a BLACK man “representing” a black district.
I hope the Republican wins, and we can close the books on this nonsense about reducing representation to nothing but skin color — when it’s convenient for Democrats.
The problem the Democrats have is bigger than Cohen, but he’s a good example.
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2026/05/17/democrats-refuse-to-even-talk-to-the-american-people-anymore-n2676195
One of the reasons that Cassidy did so poorly in the Louisiana primary is that the legislature made the primary closed so Democrats and “independents”could not vote for him. another piece of good news is that the Kentucky Republican primary next week is also closed.
Go Gallrein. Dump Massie
https://linknky.com/elections/2025/11/05/can-independents-vote-in-primaries-how-ky-primaries-work/
One of the reasons that Cassidy did so poorly in the Louisiana primary is that the legislature made the primary closed so Democrats and “independents”could not vote for him.
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Louisiana used jungle primaries for > 40 years. Should they have continued to hold such primaries, the Democrats would have had their own candidates for whom to cast ballots.
NB, a black majority district in Tennessee requires no racial gerrymander. The population of Shelby County exceeds that of the population of Tennessee divided by the number of congressional seats allocated to the state. Shelby County’s population is 51% black.
In another Trump victory, rino Senator Bill. Cassidy of Louisiana loses his primary.
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None of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump had voting records which resembled that of the Democratic caucus. Ben Sasse and Pat Toomey maintained consistently starboard voting records during their tenure in Congress. The other five appear to be careerists who’ve grown more uncooperative during their years in Congress. Susan Collins is the one whose voting record (per the American Conservative Union) has of the five the most consistent over time.
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The most consequential enemy rank-and-file Republicans have has always been McConnell and his camarilla.
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You’re going to have some disagreements over policy, but Republican legislators should never lend themselves to the propagation of the Democratic Party’s malicious nonsense narratives. That’s what Liz Cheney did and that’s what the seven twits in question did. Recall also George W. Bush’s remarks. The Bushes and the Cheneys should never again be welcome in the Republican Party.
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It was only with reluctance that Kevin McCarthy assented to her removal from the House leadership. Of all those who have led the Republican caucuses in the last twenty years, the current Speaker is the least antagonistic to the interests and sentiments of rank-and-file Republicans.
Art writes
“Louisiana used jungle primaries for > 40 years. Should they have continued to hold such primaries, the Democrats would have had their own candidates for whom to cast ballots.”
Disagree. Louisiana is such a republican state that the Democrats know they have to vote strategically to have any influence. They would vote for a senator who was already shown to be antagonistic to mainstream Republicans. Cassidy did not fool the voters and he came in third in the primary with only the Republican votes.
Disagree. Louisiana is such a republican state that the Democrats know they have to vote strategically to have any influence. They would vote for a senator who was already shown to be antagonistic to mainstream Republicans. Cassidy did not fool the voters and he came in third in the primary with only the Republican votes.
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Over the last 40 years, one of two scenarios has played out in Louisiana’s jungle primary for the U.S. Senate: the winning candidate won an outright majority in the 1st round or you had a runoff between a Republican and a Democrat. You’ve had runoffs featuring two Democrats, but not since 1980. About the only race where you had two vigorous Republican candidates was in 2016. The run-off results that year (between a Republican and a Democrat) suggest that 39% of the whole were inclined toward the Democrats. The Democratic candidates who entered the first round won between them about 36% of the vote. The gap between the leading Republican (John Kennedy) and his closest opponent (Charles Boustany) was > 9% of the vote. Boustany left Congress that year and endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024.
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The scenario you’re positing has never happened in a U.S. Senate election in Louisiana.
Striking down the referendum in Virginia, for obvious reasons, doesn’t go far enough in my opinion. I am still furious at how dishonest and manipulative the ballot measure’s wording was.
Had this measure withstood the Virginia Supreme Court, I would have declared the Rule of Law completely dead in the Old Dominion. As it is, it remains on life support.
Also, I can’t understand all these headlines about Spanberger surprising people by not being moderate. Are people really that gullible? Or is this part of continuous gaslighting that we are all subjected to?
Speaking of Liz Cheney, a politician I hold to be as contemptible as any crooked Democrat, the last time I saw her speak was a couple years ago when she was on PBS claiming Republicans’ lives were being threatened if they’d voted to convict Trump. My opinion of those commies at PBS was already so low that didn’t budge the needle, but my friend suggested he turn the channel off after my reaction.
Speaking of Liz Cheney, a politician I hold to be as contemptible as any crooked Democrat, the last time I saw her speak was a couple years ago when she was on PBS claiming Republicans’ lives were being threatened if they’d voted to convict Trump.
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She was interviewed by Judy Woodruff on or about 31 October 2022. Nobody killed at that point (or any other point), but she’d been bounced out of office in a primary in which she won 29% of the vote to the victor’s 66%.
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The Cheneys – father, daughter, son-in-law – are the perhaps the purest example (other than Glitch McConnell) of people who thought of Republican voters as marks to be ignored.
Also, I can’t understand all these headlines about Spanberger surprising people by not being moderate. Are people really that gullible?
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No, they’re not. It’s media shizz. Democratic voters don’t care about the abuses.