On His Way Out The Door, Jim Cooper Gave The Middle Finger To Newsom’s Climate Agenda
Longtime California Assemblyman Jim Cooper is leaving his seat this year to become Sheriff in Sacramento County. One of his final acts in the state legislature was to use his position as the chair of a powerful state assembly committee to block a key piece of climate legislation from even getting a vote.
Senate Bill 1173, which would have forced the state’s pension funds to divest from fossil fuel companies, extended a vision reflected in Governor Newsom’s 2019 Executive Action nudging state pension funds to “manage climate risk across the state’s investment portfolio” by shifting to investments with potential for “adapting to and mitigating the impacts of climate change.” It’s a strategy on the table in states across the country. For example, New York’s pension funds have already begun divesting from big oil.
In California, SB 1173 passed the California Senate, and it appeared that the Assembly had the floor votes to also pass the bill. But Jim Cooper, the powerful chair of the Assembly Committee on Public Employment and Retirement, kneecapped the bill at the last minute, wielding his power to prevent the measure from getting a committee vote.
Cooper killed the bill even though the measure had support from Democratic Party heavy hitters including the California Federation of Teachers, the California Nurses Association, and even the City of Los Angeles, the largest city in the state. Only the usual suspects opposed the bill, including the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), an industry lobbying group, and the California Building and Construction Trades Council, a group with a terrible record on climate change, a recent shout-out from Chevron for being such great partners, and (of course) a close relationship with Jim Cooper.
If you’re confused because Jim Cooper is a Democrat, then you must not know a lot about Jim Cooper or the feckless party elites who just can’t quit their abusive relationship with him.
Last year, Cooper opposed key climate legislation more often than he supported it. In fact, Cooper’s record on climate change is so poor, a climate group that tracks legislative voting records in the state gave him a “lifetime” score of 51% — which, if you remember your elementary school report card, is a solid F.
If you’re wondering why Cooper would vote against his own Democratic Party, it’s probably the same reason why you show up to your job everyday, which is to say it's how to get money in your bank account. Just this year alone, while he was running for ***checks notes*** Sacramento County Sheriff—an elected office that’s not associated with being a major player in the energy sector, Cooper still raked in over $36,000 in contributions from big oil.
But this should come as no surprise. Cooper is one of the state legislature’s largest recipients of corporate gifts. AT&T gave him tickets to see Paul McCartney and Maroon 5. Disneyland gave him tickets to the Magic Kingdom. Corporate-backed nonprofits, of the kind often created largely to skirt campaign finance laws, have sent him on junkets to Maui, Ireland, Finland, and Australia. It’s good to be Jim Cooper.
But if you think it can’t get any lower than sucking up to shady corporations for some lawn seats to a boy band concert, you’d be wrong:
When Cooper was in law enforcement, a civilian employee accused him of sexual harassment after he grabbed his crotch in front of her and told her she needed some “jungle love” before getting married.
When Cooper served on the Elk Grove City Council, a grand jury found that he engaged in multiple violations of conflict-of-interest laws. The grand jury found that Cooper engaged in “improper actions” and “exhibited a pattern of knowingly and willfully disregarding [his] responsibility to abide by the conflict of interest provisions of state law.”
Cooper was briefly subject to a restraining order after being accused of harassment by a man who said Cooper threatened to “shoot him in the back of the head for no reason.”
A grand jury found that Cooper would wear his gun to city council meetings and be belligerent, using vulgarities to attack his colleagues. For example, Cooper once chased a city councilmember down a hallway behind the Council Chambers, repeatedly jabbing his colleague with his finger and calling the person a “bitch.”