Tennessee Republicans didn’t redraw the map just to give Memphis a political haircut. The U.S. Supreme Court gave states room to move after ruling in Louisiana v. Callais that Louisiana’s race-driven congressional map violated the Constitution because the Voting Rights Act didn’t require another majority-minority district. Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act must enforce the Constitution, not collide with it.
Tennessee then moved its map closer to the same principle: race can’t dominate congressional lines because Democrats prefer the old setup.
Tennessee lawmakers passed the new map during a special session, and Gov. Bill Lee signed it into law. The map divides Rep. Steve Cohen’s (D-Tenn.) 9th District, long centered in Memphis, into three districts. Cohen has represented the 9th District since 2008, and his seat has been Tennessee’s only Democratic-held U.S. House district.
Cohen, of course, called the map shameful, promised a court fight, and framed the change as, wait for it, an attack on black voters.
Tennessee Republicans have a cleaner answer: the Constitution doesn’t guarantee Cohen a race-centered safe seat.
Cohen now faces the cruelest force in politics: math. His national brand grew less from legislative muscle and more from outrage, props, and a severe case of TDS. His fried chicken routine still deserves top billing.
In 2019, Cohen brought a bucket of fried chicken and a ceramic chicken into a House Judiciary Committee hearing after then-Attorney General William Barr didn’t attend. Cohen ate the chicken on camera and called Barr “Chicken Barr.”
We already suffer enough cheap theatrics without elected officials treating hearings as if they were open-mic night at the Elks Lodge.
Cohen also compared President Donald Trump to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro during a 2017 televised interview, claiming the two men shared traits involving ego, attention, and Russia. Normal criticism wasn’t enough; Cohen went looking for Havana, found a cigar box, and tried to stuff Trump into it.
An archived column from Memphis’s Action 5 News broke it down.
Cohen was discussing Trump’s relationship with Russia when the comparison came up.
“The last two people I remember in this Western Hemisphere who were so close to Russia were Armand Hammer, who loved oil and money, and Fidel Castro, who loved to talk for long periods of time, hated disloyalty and dissent and eliminated it, and was very much an egocentric individual,” Cohen said.
At that point, the CNN anchor responded to Cohen, asking if he was comparing Trump to Castro, which Cohen reiterated, saying Castro and Trump’s personality traits are similar.
“Castro needed to be the center of attention at all times,” Cohen said. “He executed certain of his comrades for trumped-up charges because he wanted total control and he wanted to put that fear into people. He was very close to his family, and he had a multitudinous family. Didn’t trust others. And it was all about him and public speaking.”
Then came Cohen’s strange 2013 social media defense after a paternity test showed he wasn’t Victoria Brink’s father. Cohen posted about a tow truck driver telling him, “You’re black! Yo,” because he drove an old Cadillac and had personal troubles.
Cohen later said he took the comment as a compliment. For a white congressman representing a majority-black district, the episode landed with the grace of a folding chair collapsing at a church fish fry.
Told AfricanAmerican towdriver my week -father -DNA test not father reporter/ attractive fallout.he(not aware of TN9)says,You’re BLack! Yo
— Steve Cohen (@RepCohen) July 21, 2013
Cohen boycotted Trump’s 2017 inauguration, and warned that Trump’s administration would push America into a new “Dark Ages.” The country survived the ceremony without him; his empty chair may not have changed history, but it gave Cohen another chance to wave from his moral balcony he built for himself.
Cohen, unsurprisingly, rushed toward impeachment. In Aug. 2017, he announced plans to introduce articles of impeachment after Trump’s Charlottesville comments. By Nov. 2017, Cohen and several House Democrats introduced five articles of impeachment, and later voted to impeach Trump in 2019, and again in 2021.
Cohen treated Trump’s presidency like a fire alarm he could keep pulling until voters mistook noise for courage.
Now Tennessee’s new map may end the safest part of Cohen’s act. Maybe he wins in court; perhaps he finds another route. Possibly it’s time for a curtain call for the bucket of chicken.
For now, Tennessee has redrawn the stage under a Supreme Court ruling that places constitutional limits ahead of racial mapmaking.
Cohen can call it shameful and racist if it pleases him, but among the leading contenders to replacd him is Charlotte Bergmann, a Republican politician and small business owner from Memphis.
Did I mention she’s black? Yes, a predominantly black district in Tennessee is the likely replacement for a pasty white moron who’s known for eating fried chicken during a committee hearing.
Irony abounds.
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