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Steve CohenStephen Ira Cohen (born May 24, 1949), generally known as Steve Cohen, is a member of the Tennessee State Senate representing a district in Memphis (Tennessee Senate District 30), a position to which he was first elected in 1982. He is a Democrat and is generally regarded as the Senate's most liberal white member. Cohen is a 1971 graduate of Vanderbilt University and a 1973 graduate of the law school of Memphis State Unversity (now the University of Memphis). He is committed to the national Democratic agenda, including gay rights, abortion rights, and progressive taxation, in contrast to most Southern Democrats. Widely regarded as one of the Senate's toughest and most articulate debaters, he is also regarded as the single most influential person in effecting the repeal of the ban on lotteries in the Tennessee State Constitution in 2002. He has an unusually straightfoward and direct style when compared to many persons in Southern politics, which his opponents often interpret as abrasiveness or arrogance but which his friends and supporters usually interpret as being merely refreshing candor and frankness. His full-time job is that of attorney. He rose to political prominence in conjunction with his service in the Tennessee Constitutional Convention of 1977, of which he was vice president, and then served for two years on the Shelby County Commission prior to his service in the Senate. He was also a delegate to the 1980 and 1992 Democratic National Conventions. As of 2004, he is the only member of the Tennessee General Assembly of Jewish extraction. Cohen, Steve Cohen, Steve Cohen, Steve Cohen, Steve
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