A Powerful State Senator: Richard Cohen

His five-room corner office suite in the state capitol building, four interns, and three full-time staff members flaunt his importance in the law-making process. In his position as chair of the Finance Committee of the Minnesota State Senate, Sen. Richard J. Cohen, DFL-64, is perched high on the ladder of power.

While the chairmanship of the Finance Committee lacks some of the pecuniary omnipotence that it held before its 1997 fracture into multiple committees, Cohen keeps an iron grip on the budgetary process by maintaining seats on three of the ten finance subdivisions: "Finance-Economic Development Budget Division," "Finance-Higher Education Budget and Policy Division," and "Finance-Judiciary Budget Division." The Finance Committee has the final say on all bills that "expend money, or [establish] a policy that to be effective will require the expenditure of money." In effect, almost every bill must be passed by the Finance Committee.

Along with his colleague in the Tax Committee, Cohen is "among the most powerful senators This importance is reflected in the Senate's filing system. All bills, called "yellow jackets" for the yellow piece of paper upon which their summary page is printed, are filed in three different locations in the state capitol building. One of these places is in the office of the committee to which the bill is assigned. About 75 percent of the bills that pass through the Minnesota State Senate's hopper will find their way into the Finance Committee or its 10 subdivisions and consequently find their way through my hands into green, legal-sized folders, which are placed numerically by bill number into the five towering file cabinets that dominate the intern office of the Finance Committee's quarters.

When the Finance Committee is in session, Sen. Cohen has the power to determine the order of the bills considered and, more importantly, he has the power to decide which bills receive hearings. Also, Cohen can "require that bills referred to other committees receive a hearing in [the Finance Committee] prior to being forwarded to the full House or Senate for consideration." He can also use his position to influence the 17 other members of the Finance Committee to decide what action to take on a bill that has been referred to his committee.

Cohen is also a member-at-large of the "Capital Investment Committee," the "Higher Education Committee," and the influential "Rules and Administration Committee." In recent sessions he has used his committee appointments to trumpet bills promoting a wide array of progressive causes and bills that address operational and financial issues in state government. He has chief authored bills that seek to create a "constitutional amendment for equal rights for men and women" and a "constitutional amendment for sales tax dedication to natural and cultural resources purposes; arts, humanities, museum and public broadcasting, heritage enhancement, parks and trails funds and clean water and heritage enhancement councils." He has also sought pragmatic bills to improve "local government operations and oversight" and "accounting principles compliance," and he has sought legislation to force the state budget to forecast revenue inflation. He has worked toward increasing "biomedical sciences research facilities" and toward developing a more thorough state policy for stem cell research."

In conclusion, Cohen has used his significant influence and power as chair of the Finance Committee in order to enact progressive legislation that seeks to address social ills and social needs as well as to ensure that the Finance Committee runs efficiently and is a model of good government for the Minnesota State Senate and the state of Minnesota.

Senate Committee Jurisdictions - 2007. http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/committees/2007-2008/info/jurisdiction_committee.pdf

Elazar, Daniel J., Virginia Gray, and Wyman Spano. Minnesota Politics and Government. University of Nebraska Press. 1999. p. 105.

How an Idea Becomes a Law in Minnesota. Sierra Club: Minnesota North Star Chapter. http://northstar.sierraclub.org/campaigns/politics/guide/billCommittee.html

"Committees have a number of choices for action, including the following: amending the bill, combining two or more bills under one file number, sending more detailed or complex bills to a subcommittee for further examination, recommending a bill to pass as introduced, recommending it be passed as amended, sending it to another committee with recommendation to pass, sending it to another committee without recommendation to pass, or killing the bill by voting it down, tabling it, delaying action, ignoring it, or returning it to its author." - Frequently Asked Questions About the Minnesota Legislature. http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/leg/faqtoc.asp?subject=5

Richard Cohen Author List. http://www.senate.leg.state.mn.us/departments/secretary/sendesk/index/author_reports/2007-2008/chief%20author%20list%20senator%20Cohen.pdf