Tennessee Representatives: A Comprehensive Exploration of Lamar Alexander, Marsha Blackburn, and Steve Cohen

Representatives Identification

Based on my residence area, which is in Cordova, located in the 9th District of Tennessee State, my two senators are Lamar Alexander and Marsha Blackburn. Lamar is the Senior Senator for Tennessee, while Marsha is the Junior Senator. The member of House Representatives in my location is called Steve Cohen. Among the three representatives, my utmost interest goes to senator Marsha Blackburn. My pick is based on Marsha’s spirited political trajectory. Apart from being the first woman to be elected to the Senate from Tennessee State, she is a staunch conservative worthy of enumeration.

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Background Information

Lamar Alexander

Family: Alexander was born on July 3, 1940, in Maryville, Tennessee. His father, Andrew Lamar Alexander, was an elementary school principal while the mother, Genevra Floreine, was a pre-school teacher. He married Honey Buhler in 1969 and together had four children. (Tennessee, 2020).

Education: Alexander joined Maryville High School in 1958, where he was chosen as a class president (Tennessee, 2020). He then proceeded to Tennessee American Legion Boys State, where he was then elected as a Governor. He then went on with his college education at Vanderbilt University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin American studies in 1962 (Tennessee, 2020). While on campus, he was the chief editor of the college newspaper, where he supported the open admission of African Americans. He also became the president of Sigma Chi. Alexander later earned a law degree from New York University School of Law in 1965(Tennessee, 2020).

Previous occupations: After he graduated from law school, Alexander became a messenger and law clerk for the U.S Court of Appeals for Judge John Minor Wisdom, Fifth Circuit in New Orleans for one year (Tennessee, 2020). In 1967, he started working as a Legislative Assistant for U.S. Senator Howard Baker (Tennessee, 2020). His business and professional life include being the co-founder of Nashville’s Dearborn & Ewing law firm, Blackberry Farm, Inc., and Corporate Child Care in 1987 (Tennessee, 2020). Alexander is also a classical and country pianist, with several awards since childhood. His key performance as a pianist includes Grand Ole Opry with Billy Graham Crusade and the Tennessee symphony.

Political experience: Alexander’s active political background can be traced back in 1970 when he became the campaign manager for Winfield Dunn, who was seeking the gubernatorial position (Tennessee, 2020). Eventually, Dunn became the first Republican to win the seat after 50 years. After the successful campaign that made Dunn win, Alexander co-founded Nashville law firm. Since the Tennessee State Constitution at that time banned a second consecutive term for governors, Dunn could not vie for the position (Tennessee, 2020). Alexander first sought the party nomination to be a governor in 1974. He has been the senator since 2003 (Tennessee, 2020).

Personal contributions: Alexander has a record of being a great sponsor of various laws including Every Student Succeeds Act, 21st Century Cures Act, Opioid Crisis Response Act, and The America COMPETES Act (Tennessee, 2020). He has also written several books, including the “Six Months Off An American Family’s Australian Adventure” and “Lamar Alexander’s Little Plaid Book.”

Marsha Blackburn

Family and education: Blackburn was born on June 6, 1952, in Laurel, Mississippi. Both the father, Hilman Wedgeworth, and mother, Mary Jo, worked in sales and management (Ballotpedia, 2020). She got married to Chuck Blackburn in 1975, and together they have two children (Ballotpedia, 2020). The family lives in Brentwood, Williamson County. Her husband founded the International Bow Tie Society (IBTS), and both are Presbyterians. Blackburn, under a 4-H scholarship, joined Mississippi State University (Ballotpedia, 2020). While a student, she was a member of Chi Omega, and at once, she was a student manager. In 1974, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in home economics from this college (Ballotpedia, 2020).

Previous occupations: Blackburn’s other career is mainly conducting businesses. It began as early as 1973 when she joined Times Mirror Company as the sales manager (Ballotpedia, 2020). She became the Director of Retail Fashion and Special Events at Mercantile Stores, Inc. until 1978, when she started her own business, Marketing Strategies, dealing with the retail marketplace (Ballotpedia, 2020).

Political experience: Blackburn’s political career backs up from 1989 when she became chair of the Williamson County Republican Party (Ballotpedia, 2020). In 1998, She was elected in Tennessee Senate, where she rose to a minority whip position. In 2002, she was elected as a House Representative of Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District (Ballotpedia, 2020). She is currently the Junior Senator of Tennessee.

Income and contributions: Blackburn’s estimated net income is $551,512 (Tennessee, 2020). She has sponsored over ten bills, and she has been a member of many charitable organizations. She is also an active member of her Presbyterian church. Additionally, she has recently written a popular book called “The Mind of a Conservative Woman: Seeking the Best for Family and Country.”

Steve Cohen

Family and education: Cohen was born on June 11, 1956, in Great Neck, New York. Cohen’s father was a dress manufacturer, and the mother, a piano teacher (Ballotpedia, 2020). He has seven siblings and has married twice. The first wife was Patricia Finke, with who he got two children, while the second one was Alexandra Garcia, and had four children with her. He went to John L. Miller Great Neck North High School and later earned an economics degree from the University of Pennsylvania (Ballotpedia, 2020).

Previous occupations and political experience: after graduating, I was hired as a junior trader at Wall Street. He later, in 1992, he started his own business, Capital Advisors (Ballotpedia, 2020). His political career and public service began in 1977 when he was elected as the Delegate and Vice-President of the Tennessee Constitutional Convention, State Senator, and Congressman (Ballotpedia, 2020).

Awards and net worth: Cohen has several awards, which include the 2017 TAA Public Policy Award, Humane Champion Award, Champion for Children Award, and Outstanding Legislator Award (Ballotpedia, 2020). His net worth is estimated to be 4 million dollars as per 2018 (Ballotpedia, 2020).

Last Elections

In the last election that was held in 2014, Lamar Alexander won through a republican ticket after getting 849,748 votes, which were equivalent to 61.9% of the total casted votes on Tennessee State. Marsha Blackburn won in the last elections done in 2018 by getting 1,227,483 votes representing 54.71% of the total votes (Ballotpedia, 2020). Steve Cohen also won in the polls conducted on November 6, 2018, by getting 145,139, which was an 80% win, to become a member of House Representatives (Ballotpedia, 2020).

Policy Areas

Lamar Alexander’s policies include quality education for all and affordable health care reforms. His ideology is that all that Americans need is quality education to be able to climb the economic ladder. Studies show that education opens opportunities for people (Hahn & Truman, 2015). Based on this fact, Alexander advocates for the creation of more schools for Tennesseans. For that reason, he sponsored Every Student Succeeds Act as part of his policy. His health care policy led him to oppose bills like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. He instead supported the American Health Care Act of 2017, which was deemed more affordable (Tennessee, 2020).

Marsha Blackburn policy areas are on moral society and simple tax code. A moral society is an ideal avenue of making a prosperous nation (Shrivastava, 2017). As a result, she is against abortion and LGBT rights. She also campaigned against proposed state income tax since she believes that the tax policy should be as low as possible.

Steve Cohen has a leadership philosophy that is based on human rights and healthcare policy issues. As a result, he has a legacy of being a relent advocate and funder of civil and women rights even when in the face of stiff opposition. For instance, in 2008, he was very instrumental in passing a House resolution regarding racial segregation of African Americans (Ballotpedia, 2020). He also believed and worked closely with the Obama administration on issues like infant mortality and universal health care.

References

Ballotpedia. (2020). Marsha Blackburn. Ballot. https://ballotpedia.org/Marsha_Blackburn

Ballotpedia. (2020). Steve Cohen. Ballot. https://ballotpedia.org/Steve_Cohen

Hahn, R. A., & Truman, B. I. (2015). Education improves public health and promotes health equity. International journal of health services, 45(4), 657-678. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4691207/

Shrivastava, S. K. (2017). Promotion of moral values through education. International Journal of Research in Social Sciences, 7(6), 103-108. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317279040_promotion_of_moral_values_through_education

Tennessee. (2020). Congressional Representatives. GovTrack. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/TN/9#q=38016&marker_lng=-89.78&marker_lat=35.2