Pipe Smokers Intelligencer

Here is the thing about U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Memphis who wants to increase by more than 700 percent the price you pay for pipe tobacco: He regularly gets few bills passed and this year the majority of your tax money he squirreled away in  “earmarks” went for projects outside his home district.

This is according to OpenSecrets.org. You can check it out for yourselves. In fact, if I am reading the numbers correctly, of the more than $18 million he spent of your money, most of it went to New York and Washington.

Uh, does this sound odd to you: A Memphis Congressman spending your hard earned tax dollars in New York and Washington?

It does to me.

In fact, I don’t want this guy spending one dime of my tax contributions. He gets lobby money by the ton, because he votes the way the lobbyists want him to vote.

And now, he wants to park a big price hike for pipe tobacco in your back pocket, not his.

He is up for re-election, but the guy likely to give him the most trouble is an African American Democrat. Cohen’s 9^th District is largely African American.

The pol who wants to take his job is former Memphis Mayor Willie W. Herenton, not exactly a clean guy.

Last October, The Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper, the largest in the Midsouth, claimed the former mayor had profited in a large-scale real estate scheme.

The newspaper said that newly discovered documents at City Hall “show the mayor and some business associates not only had big dreams for urban renewal, they used the mayor’s office to pursue their dream of personal profit.

“Herenton has said his involvement amounted to a private real estate transaction that had nothing to do with his duties a mayor.

“Yet, an investigation by The Commercial Appeal has found paperwork used to negotiate and close the deal that paid Herenton $91,000 was maintained at City Hall, in filing cabinets and on computers.”

Herenton and Cohen are in a fight to represent the Ninth Congressional District, a low-income area that surrounds Memphis and is more than 60 percent black. The district was redrawn and renumbered in 1973, increasing the percentage of minority voters, and for three decades it elected the state’s only black members of Congress since Reconstruction, Harold E. Ford Sr. and his son Harold E. Ford Jr.

And now if you look at the proceeds Cohen has picked up from lobby groups, it is easy to see whom he is in bed with:

He has raised more than $618,000 this year to pump up his war chest to over $1 million.

His largest contributors are

FedEx Corp at $14,600, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers at $10,000 and a slew of other unions such as the Allied Pilots Association ($5,000), the American Federation of State, City and County Municipal Employees     ($5,000), the Machinists/Aerospace Workers Union ($5,000),     National Beer Wholesalers Association ($5,000), Operating Engineers Union ($5,000), Plumbers/Pipefitters Union ($5,000), Service Employees International Union ($5,000), UNITE HERE ($5,000), United Auto Workers  ($5,000) and the United Transportation Union ($5,000).

You make up your own mind why these unions contribute so much to Cohen, especially since he is an anti-smoking candidate.

Cohen, of course, is not alone. He is just the one who sponsored HR 4439, the so-called tobacco parity tax.  The bill is in the House Committee on Ways and Means, where it has been since Jan. 13, 2010.

The best hope for pipe smokers is Cohen’s own track record. It isn’t good when it comes to getting bills passed in the House of Representatives.

Usually, he goes after the low-hanging fruit, nothing substantial and not a great deal for his constituents. He’s a lightweight in the House, but he drew a lot of attention with his proposed tobacco piracy act.

You can guess why. Tobacco legislation today is the low-hanging fruit. Cohen is in a real fight to save his seat, which as a career pol he desperately wants to do.

Otherwise, Cohen will have to go back to work as a lawyer in Memphis, which is full of good attorneys.