Suffolk County Legislator Jon Cooper (center) is joined by peace officers from the Suffolk County SPCA, animal rights advocates and supporters as he announces his plan to create an Animal Abuser Registry, similar to the kind already in place for sex offenders.
When the Suffolk County Legislature holds its first meeting of the New Year on Tuesday, among those missing from the cast of characters will be the one lawmaker who has arguably made the most headlines over the past decade.
Former Legis. Jon Cooper, the ex-Democratic majority leader from Lloyd Harbor, is credited with authoring some of the county’s most progressive laws before he was term limited last year. They include a 2000 ban on driving while talking on cell phones that was later enacted by New York State and a 2003 ban on the diet supplement ephedra, which was later adopted by the Food and Drug Administration.
The question now is: What comes next for Long Island’s first openly gay lawmaker?
“It’s likely that I would run for office again because I really did enjoy the past 12 years and I did find it very fulfilling, but it’s got to be the right match for me,” Cooper said from his day job at his family business, Westbury-based Spectronics Corporation, a UV equipment manufacturer.
Cooper had launched an exploratory committee to challenge U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in a 2009 primary, but later endorsed her. He also said he had been urged in the past to run for county executive and most recently, to challenge state Sen. Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset).
But for now, Cooper remains coy. He has three more kids to put through college and is focusing on his family. Cooper and his spouse, Robert, have five adopted children together, including twins.
“I’m going to be very picky about the next chapter in my life,” Cooper said. “Lots of folks are whispering in my ear.”
Now that the Marriage Equality Act passed last summer, the couple is in no rush to renew the vows made in a 2009 commitment ceremony in Connecticut, Cooper said.
Still, he is not completely washing his hands of politics until the day he decides to return to the arena. The former Long Island campaign chairman of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign is hosting fund raisers and hopes to be a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in September.
While content to wait for the right time to make his comeback, he is hoping that the Suffolk legislature will remain civil, unlike Nassau, where the partisan gridlock often resembles that of Congress.
If ever there were a time to break the peace, it would be while the legislature is trying to redraw the legislative district maps following the last census—when “gerrymandering” and “power grab” are the accusations du jour.
All that Cooper can do now is offer advice to his successor, Legis. William Spencer (D-Centerport), a pediatrician who won the 18th district in November. And he is glad to have gone out on a high note, passing a law that played to his roots as an animal rights activist before getting into politics.
His last major bills created an animal abuse registry for those convicted of harming their pets that pet stores will have to check before each animal sale. The other is a pet store rating system designed to weed out unscrupulous pet shops. Both bills, like others that were first of their kind, flooded the legislative chamber with those for and against.
How long it will be until the urge to throw his hat in the ring comes again is unclear. But Cooper said it is all but inevitable.
“I would be surprised if I don’t run for something,” he said.
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