Congressman Jim Cooper of Tennessee’s 4th District

His speech was in progress when I tuned in tonight to C-SPAN. What a treat! A “blue dog democrat,” he was speaking at Harvard University Law School on January 27, 2011. He spoke on our “broken Congress,” and offered some excellent ideas to make it better. I won’t attempt to tell you much about what he said, but I urge you to hear the entire speech online. I plan to do that when I can find that 25th hour somewhere.

Cooper does not like to raise money for any campaign of his. He says he’s not good at it. He mentioned one Congressman, whose name I didn’t catch, who raised/raises no more than $500 for each campaign and got/gets reelected. He says Congressmen don’t need more pay and indicated there should probably be a different pay scale. One suggestion was to pay for members’ success in creating ways for cutting expenses. Perhaps the word used was “budget.”

His audience included some professors of law, several of whom were good friends of his, and the applause after the address was loud. During Q&A he received compliments on and thanks for the speech from all who offered questions, if I recall accurately. [I was quite tired and sleepy, but wouldn’t have missed this for anything.] An extra delight was his intellectual sense of humor. I’d never heard of this man before, but I’d certainly like to vote for him to be reelected. He’s been in Congress a while. I hope he stays there for many years to come. Do watch this program online.

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