By Paul Perillie
He’s not faster than a speeding bullet, or more powerful than a locomotive. Not only can he not leap buildings in a single bound, Suffolk County Legislator Jon Cooper will tell you that between the pressures of being president of a multi-million-dollar family electronics firm, the demands of raising five kids, and his hectic schedule as a legislator, he rarely has time to use the gym in his home on the shore in Lloyd Neck. Still, the Island’s only openly gay politician, who has been elected twice in a traditionally conserverative district, is an unlikely superhero of sorts.
It almost seems as if Jon Cooper wants to save us from ourselves. As a freshman lawmaker he authored the nation’s first ban on using cell phones while driving. This year he scored another landmark victory by passing the first total ban of the infamous herbal supplement ephedra. But breaking ground and challenging conventions is nothing new to this polite, 48-year-old political maverick. “One of the most innovative members of the legislature,” proclaims Robert Gaffney, who heads the county’s executive branch.
Cooper is by no means the physical embodiment of a superhero. His build is slight and trim. He’s slightly shorter than average, and his neatly trimmed full beard and moustache are a combination of gray and dirty blond. He came out at a relatively late age, and so never suffered the pain of growing up gay in a straight world. He was not born to Kryptonite parents with superpowers, nor was he even a child of privilege. Two things he did have, even at an early age, were passion and compassion.
Cooper’s early years were shaped at his family home in Syosset, growing up with his younger sister Aimee. Early on, he showed a love for animals and advocacy; in high school he started the Syosset Save Our Seals Society (S.O.S.) He also showed a love of getting his own way—and the wherewithal to make it happen. “Jon would create new games to play all the time,” recalls his mother, Florence. “But since he made up the rules it was difficult for other people to win.”
Such unorthodox gamesmanship would come out in Cooper’s first foray as an activist, foreshadowing his future political skills. As president of S.O.S., he wrote a letter to the local newspaper lamenting the fate of Arctic baby seals, and mentioning his group. A week later, Cooper wrote to the editor again, but under an assumed name, asking how he could get in touch with the organization mentioned in the earlier letter. It inspired the paper to write a story about his save-the-seals club. Within two weeks, Cooper says, “S.O.S went from being this little school club with 15 members to an Island-wide organization with more that 250 supporters.” Were his tactics perhaps a little unethical? A mischievous smile is his only reply.
Getting attention for his causes is a cornerstone of Cooper’s political strategy but not one he likes to emphasize. At his first public hearing after being elected, he got more than 400 people to come out when he sponsored legislation that led to the purchase of 83 acres of open space formerly owned by the U.S. Veterans Administration Hospital. The legislation wasn’t groundbreaking but it was a serious concern to Northport residents who feared overdevelopment. “The vast majority of my work is only of concern to my local constituents,” he says. “That’s who I serve and that’s who I answer to.” After spending time with him, you get the sense that Cooper has a serious case of “Mary Tyler Moore-itus”—that is, he seems to have a real need to be upbeat, useful and decent. Matched with his keen lawmaking insights, it creates an admirable persona.
Constituents certainly seem to be his legislative inspiration. He spearheaded efforts to ban cell-phone use while driving in 2000 because of a car crash that killed Carole and John Michael Hall of East Northport and left their 16-year-old daughter with a broken back. Nineteen-year-old Jason Jones, from Maryland, had lost control of his car and collided with the Halls while dialing his cell phone.
A similar story roused him to draft the ephedra ban. Peter Schlendorf, a 20-year-old college student from Asharoken, died from taking an herbal supplement that contained the substance. Cooper teamed with the Schlendorf parents to ensure others would not have to face the same tragedy. It took six months and one of the nastiest fights the Suffolk County Legislature had ever seen, but Cooper ultimately prevailed in banning the stuff.
Perhaps most telling, although he’s a businessman himself, Cooper is hardly in the pocket of business interests. That may be because he’s rich enough to finance his own campaigns—even if he hasn’t had to dip into his substantial personal fortune yet. Nevertheless, business owners respect him. He’s always open, never an ideologue. “We don’t always agree with John,” says Mitchell Pally, vice president of governmental affairs for the Long Island Association, the Island’s largest business group. “But he lets our members make their case, and as a businessman himself, he understands what we go through.”
He seems to have a knack for firsts, perhaps because his ideas percolate from constituents up. In 2001, he made Suffolk the first county in the state to ban the sale of mercury thermometers. EPA statistics indicate mercury that escapes from broken thermometers can be deposited into lakes and rivers where it can transformed into highly toxic methylmercury. Last April, he made Suffolk County the first municipality in the nation to require countywide candidates to report campaign contributions electronically. The legislation makes campaign contribution information accessible via the web. Prior to this bill, if a voter wanted to know where a candidate’s cash came from they had to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the Board of Elections.
So it’s no surprise that he tends to make news when he makes laws. Not only does he get those newsmaking “firsts,” but he has a penchant for championing sexy issues with dramatic histories that reporters love to write about. With his appearance on the CBS Evening News last month, he estimates he’s done well over a hundred media interviews on the subject of ephedra alone.
All the attention has made some of his fellow legislators jealous. Some grumble in private how they saw Cooper on TV “again,” but good luck finding any to go on the record criticizing him. “Jon and I have not always seen eye to eye on everything that has come before the legislature,” says Republican Legislator Paul Tonna, who has disagreed with Cooper on many issues. “But I commend him for his ability and commitment to the issues he champions.”
Of course, there are those who don’t appreciate being saved from themselves, who in fact, don’t see it as “saving” them but as government interference. Bodybuilders and other fans of ephedra point out that hundreds of thousands of jars of the stuff has been taken, and few people have died. Drivers on the LIE break the cell-phone law hourly.
Bob Wagner, a Bohemia-based herbal-supplement distributor who sold products containing ephedra, thinks Cooper “threw the baby out with the bathwater” on ephedra. The bill allows certified herbalists to sell products that contain the natural form of ephedra to treat asthma, but does not allow doctors to sell weight loss or energy boosters that contain the supplement. Wagner, who expects to lose $20,000 a month with the ban in place, says the law should have exempted medical doctors. “Who is he to think he knows what’s better for someone than their personal physician?” Wagner says.
Growing Up Political
Cooper left home for college, attending North Carolina’s Duke University. Majoring in political science and planning on going to law school, he continued his work as an animal activist. He became a vocal opponent of steel hunting traps and took the helm of another animal activist group called the American Committee for Humane Trapping.
Cooper’s career in politics was almost over before it began. He got a North Carolina state legislator to sponsor a bill that would ban the traps. Outside of the Equal Rights Amendment, which was also being considered by the legislature, Cooper’s initiative was the most controversial legislation before the body that year. Just when it seemed the bill might pass, the legislator—who had become Cooper’s mentor—changed his position and publicly came out against the bill. Cooper claims his mentor was muscled by the state’s powerful game-hunting lobby to withdraw his support for the legislation. The bill was defeated. It left Cooper devastated. “I got so turned off by politics and the law that I decided not to become a lawyer,” Cooper remembers. It would be 25 years before Cooper became active in politics again.
Before returning home to join the family business, Cooper took some time off in 1977 to travel the world. Yet even while traveling, Cooper could not escape controversy and politics. He was detained at Havana airport in Cuba for allegedly being a CIA agent, held for several hours and accused of promoting revolutionary and anti-government ideas. Fearing he might have taken pictures of secure locations, the authorities would not let Cooper go unless he agreed to leave the film from his camera behind. Just before the trip he saw the movie Midnight Express. It tells the story of an American drug mule who is thrown into the horrors of a Turkish prison. Recalling the movie’s disturbing images, Cooper ultimately agreed and left the film behind. He laughs at the notion of being a spy, but he does speak Spanish and admits that he did talk a lot of politics while on the island.
After Cuba, Cooper planned a trip to Poland. Before he left, a Polish dissident group affiliated with Solidarity (the party that Lech Walesa ultimately led to power) contacted Cooper, asking him to meet with a political prisoner under house arrest in Warsaw. Cooper’s previous encounter with the Cuban authorities made him hesitant, but he ultimately relented. “As long as I didn’t take any pictures I thought I should be okay,” he says with a chuckle.
After spending several hours with the dissident, he agreed to smuggle out some political documents. Cooper stuffed them in a suitcase with his dirty laundry (he turned them over to the dissident group when he returned to the U.S.), and on the way home flirted with the female customs agent, distracting her from inspecting his bags. It would be one of his last flirts with a woman, as he would soon realize he was homosexual. However, it would be many years before he came out to his family.
Back in the U.S., now in his early 20s, Cooper started working in the company his father and uncle had co-founded, Westbury-based Spectronics Corporation. Starting with a few patents, Spectronics has grown to be the world’s leading manufacturer of ultraviolet equipment and fluorescent materials—they make machines that detect counterfeit bills and the ultraviolet lights that nightclubs use to check your hand stamp. The young Cooper worked in various departments, learning the business that he would eventually run as president.
Around this time Cooper also re-started his political life, becoming a local activist for the Democratic Party. He didn’t exactly stuff envelopes, but used his contacts and organizational skills in fundraising and planning. “He was different from the kind of volunteer you would normally expect to get involved, but not because of his sexuality,” says Sandra Bachety, a longtime Suffolk County Democratic Party activist who was involved in recruiting him. “He was already a well-established businessman and member of the community.”
Within a year of returning to politics, Cooper was ready to jump into the deep end of the pool. When he heard there were some races opening up, Cooper made his interest known to the party leadership. He told them he wanted to run for the legislature but only if he could do so as an openly gay man. “I wasn’t going to flaunt my sexuality but I certainly wasn’t willing to hide it either,” he says. For the candidate-screening committee which selected him, his sexuality wasn’t an issue, and his qualifications carried the day. “Initially he spoke about his partner and many of my colleagues didn’t know what he was talking about,” says Bachety, who led the selection committee. “But Jon was very smart and engaging so I knew he would make a strong showing for himself and the party.” In 1997 Cooper became an official candidate.
Despite his experience as an activist, Cooper made many rookie mistakes in his first political run. For one thing, he did not effectively “walk the district,” a somewhat self-explanatory campaign tactic designed to boost name recognition. The trick is to hit as many houses as possible, spending only as much time as necessary (five minutes max) in order to have the voter remember you favorably. Cooper wound up spending as much as two hours per home, listening to voter’s concerns and talking about the issues in depth.
Not surprisingly to veteran campaigners, he ended up losing, garnering only 38 percent of the votes. “I had no idea what I was doing,” he admits. The one thing Cooper did do was invite his opponent Steve Hackerling and his family over for dinner a week after the election. “My kids and his were friends,” Cooper says. “We both wanted to show them that people can feel differently about things without being enemies.”
His second race in 1999 did not end up nearly as cordial. Cooper initially ran against Hackerling again, who by this time had been elected presiding officer of the legislature. Then in July, Hackerling resigned from the race in order to run for district judge. Within days the GOP had nominated long-time party activist Ken Stubbolo. Conservative and Right-to-Life candidate Richard Thury also joined the race.
Cooper says up until a week before the election, the race had been aboveboard and about the issues. But when polls showed Cooper pulling ahead, his opponents pulled out the stops. The Conservative Party, outraged that the seat formerly held by the presiding officer would not only be lost, but lost to a homosexual, attacked Cooper for being gay and urged its supporters to vote for Stubbolo. Stubbolo welcomed that support, calling himself the candidate of “conventional, traditional values.”
The backlash was almost instantaneous. As Cooper walked the district (this time he hit 4,000 homes), Republicans and Conservatives alike came up to him expressing their dismay and disgust at their parties’ gay-bashing tactics. “I’m a conservative but I think it’s horrible what they are doing to you,” Cooper recalls one woman confessing. Whether it was the negative backlash or Cooper’s improved campaign tactics, he had won his first race.
Even after being elected, some felt Cooper’s sexuality would stay an issue. “Shadowy voices in the legislature told me that electing a homosexual is one thing, but interacting with them is another,” according to one legislator who was unwilling to be specific on the record.
Understandably, the first time Cooper and his domestic partner, Rob, attended a public event together—in this case a local firefighters’ fundraiser—they were slightly nervous. True to himself, Cooper led Rob up to the dance floor as soon as the music came on. Instead of feeling the sting of disapproving stares, Jon and Rob were the hit of the party. Rob is an excellent dancer, so while Cooper talked politics with the firefighters and other politicians, Rob had his dance card filled all night by their wives. Cooper gives tremendous credit to his district for accepting his lifestyle. “This isn’t about me. I am who I am. It is because my constituents are educated, open-minded people that I can live my life and serve their needs,” he says.
Today Cooper shares his spacious and comfortable waterfront home with Rob, his five adopted children, two dogs and a tabby cat. The boulder that Captain Kidd’s booty is rumored to be under is now the primary climbing feature for the pen of the Cooper family’s pet pygmy goat, Jay. All are featured on Cooper’s official website and in his campaign literature. As for his children: Daniel is 18 years old and will leave for college next fall. Jessica is 13, Christopher is 9 and the twins, Kimberly and Jennifer, are both 8. The kids call Rob “Papa” and Jon “Daddy.” What is most striking about this family, where only the twins are blood relatives, is how traditional they are. Five minutes in their presence and you forget you are anywhere but in the midst of a large group of people tied together by love. “That’s the only definition of a family that really counts,” says Rob. “They are people who love each other.”
Compared to today’s generation, Cooper only fully realized his sexuality very late. Twenty years ago there was not the openness and resources there are today for young gays and lesbians. “The only images of homosexuals I knew were either leather-clad biker types or limp-wristed queens with lisps,” Cooper explains. “And I didn’t identify with either of those.” Cooper dated women in high school, college and into his adult life. He came out to himself in 1980. At the time he was dating two women. He broke it off with each of them, claiming he had fallen in love with the other. The truth was that Cooper had fallen in love with another man. He went to work and pursued his subdued sexuality as a member of the Island’s gay and lesbian social scene. He met his life partner Rob across the crowded room of a nightclub. They went on only a couple of dates when then decided to move in with each other.
Remarkably, Cooper’s family still did not catch on to his sexuality, and he did not come out to them until 18 years ago, when he and Rob decided to adopt Daniel. “I have good news and bad,” he told them. “The good news is you’re finally going to be grandparents. The bad news is I’m gay.” His parent’s acceptance and love was forthcoming. In fact, it’s almost strange that he took so long to tell them, since they were so accepting. “It was sudden and a surprise,” says his mother. “But within five minutes I accepted it. When it comes to people who are prejudiced against Jon I feel sad. Not for Jon, but for those who prejudge him without getting to know how great a person he is.”
Cooper juggles his time between his three primary responsibilities: family, politics and business. The demands of being a public servant take him away from the family business, but the family patriarch, Bill, applauds his son’s time-management skills: “Jon is there a lot. He tries to come in every day, except during the legislative sessions. Sometimes those can go on for 12 hours. I don’t envy him.”
What’s next for Cooper? Even he is not sure. In his most recent race, for re-election in 2001, he ran against New York City firefighter and Conservative Party candidate Peter Gunther. Gunther had spent time at ground zero, and his campaign picture had him decked out in his firefighter’s uniform. All Gunther’s literature mentioned his dangerous work and time at ground zero. In the emotionally patriotic aftermath of 9-11 Cooper confesses, “I almost wanted to vote for him myself.”
In recent weeks, as a result of the ephedra ban, he has been approached to run for the wide-open county executive’s race. Since his bills have a penchant for gaining national attention, some have even said he should run for Congress. While Cooper does admit to entertaining notions of running for higher office, he also has no plans to run for anything except re-election. “Right now I’m really lucky,” he says. “I can balance my family, my job and political work. Any plans to seek higher office would require me to alter that scale. I’m happy right now and I just don’t want to do that.”
What legislation does Cooper have in his sights? The majority of bills are local open-space projects. He is also working to close Suffolk’s $150 million dollar budget gap. The most controversial issue he is taking on is campaign financing. Cooper is asking for a referendum on whether the county should require all residents to contribute one dollar to a general fund to be distributed to candidates. As an incumbent, Cooper admits he has an easier time raising funds than a challenger. But he says, “I believe a level playing field would benefit the entire election process.” Under his plan campaign spending would be capped and candidates who accept public dollars would be barred from accepting funds from companies that do business with the county.