Mark B. Cohen - Political, Civic and Governmental Activism

Political, Civic and Governmental Activism

Cohen was appointed by Robert W. Edgar as a member of the President's Council of Common Cause. He toured schools with U.S. Senator Bob Casey, Jr. and others to gain and share information about problems facing today's children. He joined fellow members of the House Democratic Policy Committee in hearing testimony on urgent public problems. He testified before the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission against rate increases affecting his constituents. He helped organize special events helping senior citizens, and others needing information about health issues and health providers. He joined Presidents and Mayors in honoring 100-year-old constituents. He opposed legislation discriminating against immigrants. He introduced House Resolution 714 designating Asian American Heritage Month on May 2, 2012; it passed the House unanimously on May 7, 2012. He shared his legislative district office with Philadelphia Councilwoman Marian Tasco one day a week, rent-free. With her, he helped organize a summer basketball league, the Philadelphia Future League, which played its games at Philadelphia's Fisher Park, and hosted all-star games there on September 15, 2012.

Cohen spoke on "Hunger- Free Communities: Improving Food Access and Community Nutrition" at a conference called by the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger.

A lifetime member of the NAACP, Cohen publicly rejected membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council. He attends meetings of the Progressive States Network, and he was one of over 1000 state legislators nationally, and eighteen in Pennsylvania, to sign a 2009 letter organized by Progressive States Network calling "on President Obama and the Congress to enact bold and comprehensive health care reform this year.... and pledge our support as state legislators and allies in pursuit of guaranteed, high quality affordable health care for all." He attends Philadelphia public events of National Night Out. and works to get resources to fight neighborhood crime. He supports Philadelphia town watch /Neighborhood Watch organizations, Democratic Party picnics civic awards dinners and other civic awards events. He continues to participate in political/governmental advocacy organizations including Democracy for America, Netroots Nation, MoveOn.org Pennsylvania's annual Progressive Summit, and the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee, the governing body of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. He is a Democratic committeeman for the 53rd Ward, 16th Division in Philadelphia, and is first vice-chairman of the 53rd Ward Democratic Executive Committee.

Citing "a great gap of leadership in American society, and... an adverse effect on the recent history of the United States," Cohen in 1975 introduced a resolution memorializing Congress "to appoint a committee or committees to begin a full, thorough and comprehensive investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King;" the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations was established the following year to investigate the assassinations of just John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Cohen successfully supported the enactment of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a state holiday.

He also supported naming the Keystone Shortway, Interstate 80, after Christopher Columbus, but opposed naming Philadelphia's criminal justice center after former Philadelphia police commissioner and mayor Frank L. Rizzo, saying "Although it is appropriate to praise the dead, it is not necessarily appropriate to give the dead eternal recognition." He said the administration of criminal justice was "a signal failure of the Rizzo Administration." He never complained about the privately paid for Rizzo statue in front of the Municipal Services Building, however.

He was an early advocate of Edward M. Kennedy running for President in 1980. He was a contributor to the Presidential campaign of John B. Anderson for the Republican Presidential nomination opposing both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He was an early contributor to the Presidential campaign of Al Gore in 1999.

Cohen opposed the "highway robbery" of a company getting $2.5 million in state government loans, and then shutting down its operations less than three years later. "What did we get for our money?" he asked along with Reps. Dwight E. Evans and Robert Belfanti.

He was an early opponent of the Iraq War who favored responsible Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. He spoke in support of Israel and peace in the Middle East.

He was an early endorser of the successful campaign of R. Seth Williams for Philadelphia District Attorney in 2009. He campaigned for House Democratic colleagues, Louise Bishop, John Sabatina, Leanna Washington and others. He signed "An Open Letter to the Jewish Community," in the Jewish Exponent, which argued that 2010 Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Joseph Sestak was a strong supporter of Israel. He engaged in political fundraising.

Attending the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures in 1987, he helped lead 60% of the state delegations to support a resolution opposing the pending US Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork by President Ronald Reagan, despite the resolution's unanimous defeat in the convention's Law and Justice Committee. The Associated Press noted he "said the resolution was the only substantial statement that the delegates were considering. Other NCSL positions aren't newsworthy because they are the bland result of consensus," he said. Bork's nomination was never confirmed by the US Senate.

Saying "the Civil War is over and Slavery in the United States is illegal," he joined national efforts against the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy (American Civil War) in the Georgia state flag in 1996; Five years later, threatened with national boycotts, the state of Georgia quieted protesters by redoing its flag. The state flag was last modified in 2003.

He defended the practice of electing judges in Pennsylvania.

He argued strongly against the replacement of the winner take all allocation system for Pennsylvania's electoral votes by a system giving a candidate a single vote for each Congressional district carried, with just two votes for carrying Pennsylvania. Disagreeing with a high-powered lobbying effort, he sent a public letter to the two chief public advocates of one electoral vote per Congressional district plan—Governor Tom Corbett and State Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi—asserting that their proposal "unconstitutionally abridges the right to vote of Pennsylvania's minority citizens." His letter was cited by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette as one of the reasons to oppose the Corbett-Pileggi plan.

He supported the Philadelphia Newspaper Guild in its 2006 labor dispute with publisher Brian Tierney. He pressured the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, generally known as SEPTA, to come to terms with the Transport Workers Union by co-sponsoring a bill which would have kept transportation subsidies in escrow until a transportation strike is settled. He supported organizing Mushroom Workers in their efforts to both form a union and grow mushrooms in a more sanitary manner. In support of the Mushroom Workers, he said "Laws don't mean anything without vigorous sustained advocacy, and a union would greatly increase the chances of that." He supported the organizing efforts of the Philadelphia Security Officers Union.

He called public attention to the millions of dollars in unspent money for residents of Pennsylvania in the federal Emergency Homeowners Loan Program, passed after the announcement of the Homeowners Affordability and Stability Plan by President Barack Obama, urging eligible people in danger of losing their homes due to financial distress to apply in press conferences held in both Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Pennsylvania became one of four states "to commit its full EHLP allocation," approving 3,056 applications for loans totaling $108 million, including $3 million in extra funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. "During the final weeks of this program," Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) CEO and executive director Brian A. Hudson said,"our staff worked evenings and weekends to process every EHLP application. I'm proud of the tireless effort they made, and we're all very pleased to have helped so many families avoid the heartbreak of foreclosure. This not only directly helps those families, but it also helps stabilize communities hardest hit by the economic slowdown."

He worked on behalf of his constituents with numerous businesses, including the PECO Energy Company,

His many years of governmental service and political activism have led to occasional recognition as a political pundit. He has often had occasion to eulogize top elected officials, fellow legislators lobbyists, political activists, civic activists, local elected officials and bloggers. He has sometimes been a voice of caution, warning of difficulties ahead. He has sometimes been used by journalists as a source of legislative institutional memory, a source of what is considered hot news at the time or a source of analysis. He has sometimes offered predictions on which party would control the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in future elections, and which legislative seats would change political parties.

He has expressed his views before the Philadelphia City Council, the Delaware River Basin Commission, the Pennsylvania Rehabilitation Council, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission the Legislative Reapportionment Commission, the Mayor's Task Force on Ethics and Campaign Finance Reform and other official bodies.

Cohen's activism and leadership on numerous issues over a period of four decades led him to spend unmandated weekends and holidays in Harrisburg, leading to journalistic criticism for extra travel, meals, and lodging expenses. Asked by Facebook friend Russ Diamond about criticism of his per diem payments, Cohen said he "may well be the hardest working state legislator" and "what it comes down to is that I take very few days off, and they are trying to turn that into a scandal." Two critics of Cohen for spending too many days working in Harrisburg later criticized the legislature as a whole for spending too few days working in Harrisburg due to a "minimalist calendar," and Auditor General -elect Eugene DePasquale said "If you're gonna pay the legislature, myself included, as full time, you should be working at it full time, and it's not just district office work. There is still work that needs to be done."