# John Cooksey

# John Cooksey

John Charles Cooksey (August 20, 1941 – June 4, 2022) was an American ophthalmologist and Republican politician who represented Louisiana's 5th congressional district in the [United States House of Representatives](/organizations/united-states-house-of-representatives) from January 3, 1997, to January 3, 2003. He was born in Alexandria, Rapides Parish, Louisiana, and died in Columbia, Louisiana; the Biographical Directory of the [United States Congress](/organizations/energy-actor-us-congress) records his interment at Old Bethel Cemetery in Clarks. The Advocate described him as a Monroe Republican and eye surgeon whose medical practice was based in Monroe, and reported that no cause of death had been released.

He graduated from LaSalle High School in Olla, received a B.S. from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 1962 and an M.D. from Louisiana State University in 1966, and earned an M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994. The American Academy of Ophthalmology, which listed him as a Life Fellow, states that the medical degree was from the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans and describes him as the first ophthalmologist to serve in the House. He served in the United States Air Force from 1967 to 1969 and in the Louisiana Air National Guard from 1970 to 1971. A Congressional Quarterly profile carried by CNN also lists Air Force Reserve service from 1969 to 1972, and the Advocate reported that his Air Force stations included Texas and Thailand.

The 1996 House contest was his first campaign for elective office. He defeated Democratic state representative Francis Thompson of Delhi in a runoff for the 5th-district seat. Before that race he had raised money for other candidates and, in the mid-1970s, helped lead an effort to cap medical-malpractice awards in Louisiana at $500,000. Early in the term he received seats on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Agriculture Committee; Congressional Quarterly described the district as largely rural, with rice and cotton among its main crops. The Academy and the Advocate both report that, during about six years of volunteer medical work in East Africa, he helped found an eye clinic in Kenya.

Cooksey was elected to the 105th Congress and the two succeeding Congresses. He was not a candidate for reelection to the House in 2002 and was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination to the [United States Senate](/organizations/united-states-senate). A week after the [September 11 attacks](/facts/september-11-attacks), [Human Rights Watch](/organizations/human-rights-watch) recorded that he told a Louisiana radio station, "If I see someone [who] comes in that's got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over." The [White House](/organizations/white-house) said President [George W. Bush](/people/george-w-bush) was "very disturbed" by the remark, which the wire report described as a reference to turbans. Human Rights Watch later wrote that Cooksey apologized. A funeral was held on June 17, 2022, at the First United Methodist Church in Columbia.

## Early life and education

### Family and upbringing

John Charles Cooksey was born on August 20, 1941, in Alexandria, Rapides Parish, Louisiana./) He was the son of Ruth Lee Cooksey and Henry Oscar Cooksey. An executive order by Governor [John Bel Edwards](/people/john-bel-edwards), issued after Cooksey’s death, said he was raised in central Louisiana and learned the value of hard work and a good education from his parents and his community. In a tribute on the House floor, Representative [Julia Letlow](/people/julia-letlow) said he grew up near his father’s sawmill in rural LaSalle Parish.

A family obituary places his early childhood in Georgetown and later in Burlington, where it says his father operated a lumber mill and a building-supply company, before the family settled in Olla, where his mother taught English and served as a guidance counselor at LaSalle Parish High School; he grew up there with a younger sister, Betty, and a younger brother, Hank; an uncle, the physician Charles Cooksey, turned him toward medicine; and he remembered Governor Earl Long stopping in LaSalle Parish to make stump speeches. The governor’s order also names his sister Betty and his brother Hank.

He graduated from LaSalle High School in Olla, in LaSalle Parish./)

### Louisiana State University

Cooksey went on to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress lists a bachelor of science from that campus in 1962 and a doctor of medicine in 1966, entering both degrees under Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge./) A resolution adopted by the Louisiana House of Representatives in June 2022 also credits a bachelor of science from Louisiana State University, and it places the medical degree at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans, describing it as a doctor of medicine specializing in ophthalmology. Letlow’s tribute said he attended LSU and LSU Medical School and became an ophthalmologist.

The medical center’s commencement was held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 4, 1966, at the Municipal Auditorium in New Orleans, with degrees conferred by John A. Hunter, president of Louisiana State University. In the program text, John Charles Cooksey is listed alphabetically between Thomas Joseph Conklin and Joseph James Creely Jr. The names around him continue, without a break in alphabetical order, into the roster printed under the heading “Doctors of Medicine,” which runs through Beverly Bertrand Yount.

The family obituary describes the undergraduate years differently from the congressional directory. It says that after three years in Baton Rouge, still short of a few undergraduate courses, he was admitted to medical school early, that he liked to tell a patient he knew what he was doing even though he had not finished college, and that during his last year on the Baton Rouge campus he lived in dormitories then located in the football stadium and remained a loyal fan of LSU Tigers football. The Biographical Directory nonetheless records the 1962 bachelor of science./)

Many years later, that directory lists a master of business administration from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994./) The Louisiana House resolution notes the Austin M.B.A. without giving the year.

## Military service

### Flight surgeon

Before an ophthalmology residency, Cooksey joined the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War; his family’s obituary says that he enlisted and served as an F-4 flight surgeon based at Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin, Texas, with multiple tours to Thailand. The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress lists Air Force service from 1967 to 1969, and the *Congressional Directory* for the 107th Congress states that he served in northern Thailand during the Vietnam War. A 2022 resolution of the Louisiana House of Representatives records the same years and says he was stationed in Thailand and Texas.

[The base](/organizations/the-base) stood on State Highway 71 about seven miles east of Austin. From July 1966 it was under Tactical Air Command and housed headquarters of the Twelfth Air Force, which directed that command’s reconnaissance, fighter, and airlift operations west of the Mississippi River. Neither those base histories nor the congressional biographies and the state resolution name Cooksey’s squadron, rank, or decorations.

On June 7, 2022, Representative Julia Letlow told the House that he “was a pilot in the Air Force and flew missions during the Vietnam War.” The Biographical Directory and the *Congressional Directory* record Air Force service in Thailand and do not describe him as a pilot. The family obituary, which is the account that specifies the flight surgeon’s assignment, adds that after the war he kept an interest in aviation and later renewed a pilot’s license, and that his daughter Karen was born while he was away on a military assignment; it says he reached the hospital in Austin shortly after the birth by catching a ride with another Air Force pilot.

### Reserve and Air National Guard

At the end of active duty, Cooksey and his wife, Ann Grabill Cooksey, whom congressional biographies record he married in 1967, returned to New Orleans, where he completed an ophthalmology residency at Ochsner Medical Center and, the family wrote, continued in the Air Force Reserve. House Resolution No. 281 of the 2022 regular session dates that reserve service from 1969 until 1972.

Congressional biographies use a different designation for part of those years. The Biographical Directory lists Louisiana Air National Guard service in 1970 and 1971, and the *Congressional Directory* lists Air National Guard service for the same two years. On June 15, 2022, Governor John Bel Edwards ordered flags at half-staff and described the record as overseas Air Force service during the Vietnam War together with stateside service in the Louisiana Air National Guard. The directory, the state resolution, and the executive order do not name a reserve or Guard unit or describe duties after active duty.

## Medical career

### Practice in Monroe

After active-duty Air Force service, Cooksey finished a residency in ophthalmology at the Ochsner Medical Foundation in New Orleans and opened a private practice in Monroe, Louisiana. A profile on the website of Louisiana Eye & Laser, the Monroe practice with which he was later affiliated, dates that practice to 1972. Before military service he interned at Caldwell Parish Hospital, where a family obituary says he performed deliveries on an obstetrics rotation, and at Shumpert Hospital in Shreveport. The biography in the official *Congressional Directory* lists him as a physician-ophthalmologist in private practice in Monroe, a member of the Louisiana State Medical Society, and a past president of the Ouachita Parish Medical Society.

That obituary describes a general eye practice in which his number stayed in the phone book, he saw patients after hours, and he sometimes accepted produce when patients could not pay. It also says he kept the Monroe office open during his years in Congress and returned to full-time practice afterward. The American Academy of Ophthalmology recorded him as a Life Fellow.

### Teaching and cataract surgery

Cooksey was an early user of phacoemulsification, and the family obituary says he traveled to teach the ultrasound cataract technique and to operate. The Louisiana Eye & Laser profile states that for about 20 years he trained residents from Ochsner Foundation Hospital and from the LSU medical center in Shreveport in anterior segment surgery. Near the end of his own training he coauthored papers with Robert A. Schimek and others on prolonged ocular compression, used to soften the eye and reduce vitreous loss, and on the recovery of pressure afterward.

In September 1988 *Ophthalmic Surgery* published “Intraocular pressure following ECCE, phacoemulsification, and PC-IOL implantation,” by K. S. Kooner, Cooksey, P. Perry, and T. J. Zimmerman, with the department of ophthalmology at Louisiana State University Medical Center in Shreveport given as the address. The retrospective series covered 242 eyes of 211 patients who had extracapsular cataract surgery with phacoemulsification and a posterior-chamber intraocular lens. Pressure above 23 mm Hg occurred in 20 eyes (8.2 percent); elevation beyond three months that needed treatment occurred in two patients (0.8 percent); and six further eyes (2.5 percent) developed glaucoma after a year, for a 3.3 percent rate of secondary pseudophakic glaucoma. No eye required laser or other mechanical surgery for pressure, and the authors concluded that the operation did not appear to harm intraocular pressure, though some patients developed glaucoma months later.

A 2007 appellate opinion describes one of his later cataract cases. Louis J. Tanner, Cooksey’s patient since 1992, had a left-eye cataract removed in 1994 and put off right-eye surgery until the cataract was brunescent. Cooksey told him that phacoemulsification, which the court called the usual operation, was no longer possible, and on December 14, 2000, he performed an extracapsular extraction; the posterior capsule ruptured, the eye bled, and he did a vitrectomy. A medical review panel found a breach for not referring Tanner to a retinal specialist after a December 27 visit, without deciding whether the delay caused harm. A jury found no proved breach or resulting injury, and the Louisiana Second Circuit affirmed.

### Work in Kenya

Cooksey’s congressional biography states that he made five medical mission trips to Maua Methodist Hospital in Maua, Kenya, performed eye surgery there, and raised private donations for a modern eye clinic at the hospital to be used by local and visiting ophthalmologists. The same biography notes a 1989 Paul Harris Fellow award from the Downtown Rotary Club for humanitarian work in Africa. The 1997 directory inserts “in 1986” into the clinic sentence; the 2002 edition omits the year.

*Entrance gate of Maua Methodist Hospital in Maua, Kenya.*

The Academy’s obituary instead describes a six-year mission in East Africa during which he helped found an eye clinic in Kenya, the wording also used by the [Associated Press](/organizations/associated-press) and repeated by *Ophthalmology Times*. The family account, which does not name the town, says Methodist church ties led him to start a clinic at a rural Methodist hospital and to send annual teams of ophthalmologists, nurses, and other volunteers for cataract operations. The congressional biography is the source that places the clinic at Maua, as distinct from the later work of ophthalmologist John Cropsey, who was the ophthalmologist at Tenwek Hospital’s eye unit in Bomet.

### Malpractice legislation

In the mid-1970s Cooksey joined the physician campaign for Louisiana’s medical-malpractice statute, Act 817 of 1975. In a 2015 article in the *Journal of the Louisiana State Medical Society*, surgeon and attorney Donald J. Palmisano, a participant, called Cooksey the “cheerleader who gathered the team” and “the father of this Louisiana law.” He wrote that the state medical society eventually “signed on,” that parish societies lobbied legislators they knew, and that Cooksey later said the act succeeded because of “the team and the timing.” Palmisano also described a signing photograph that included Governor [Edwin Edwards](/people/edwin-edwards), Cooksey, and himself. The family obituary calls the statute a model for other states; Palmisano compared it with California’s better-known liability law, which he said was enacted later, and with a separate Texas statute of 2003.

In *Butler v. Flint Goodridge Hospital* (1992), the Louisiana Supreme Court discussed Act 817 against a background in which some providers had been left without malpractice insurance, and it upheld the $500,000 ceiling. As amended, state law limits all recoverable damages for injury to or death of one patient to $500,000 plus interest and costs, excluding future medical care and related benefits, and limits a qualified provider’s own liability to $100,000 plus specified interest and costs, with the excess handled through the Patient’s Compensation Fund. A 1984 change, Act 435, which Palmisano described as allowing unlimited future medical payments as incurred, requires the fund to pay that care without regard to the $500,000 limit. The *Butler* court held that the cap, together with the medical-care offset, did not violate equal protection, due process, or access to courts.

## Elections to the House

### Party work before 1996

Cooksey’s first race for elective office was for the United States House of Representatives in 1996. Before that he worked in Louisiana Republican organization and fundraising rather than as a candidate. A Project Vote Smart biography lists service on the Republican State Central Committee from 1976 to 1984; as Fifth District finance chair for [Dave Treen](/people/dave-treen)’s 1979 campaign for governor and for Henson Moore’s 1986 campaign for the U.S. Senate; as district finance chair for Jim McCrery’s campaigns for Congress in 1992 and 1994; and as a member of the finance committee for [Buddy Roemer](/people/buddy-roemer)’s 1995 campaign for governor. Congressional Quarterly, profiling the incoming class, described him as an active behind-the-scenes fundraiser for other candidates, including McCrery, who won the redrawn 4th District in 1996. The same account noted that in the mid-1970s Cooksey had helped lead the drive for a state law capping medical-malpractice awards at $500,000.

### 1996 campaign

The district was drawn in litigation after the 1990 census cut Louisiana’s House delegation from eight seats to seven. Seeking preclearance under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the legislature adopted plans with two majority-Black districts. A three-judge court struck down the 1992 plan, whose 4th District it compared to a “Z” across the state, and then the 1994 replacement. In 1995 the Supreme Court set aside the ruling on the 1994 plan in *United States v. Hays* because those plaintiffs did not live in the challenged district. On January 5, 1996, with new plaintiffs who did, the panel again held that the plan violated the Equal Protection Clause under *Shaw v. Reno*, declared it void, and reinstated the court’s 1994 map. The legislature enacted that configuration, the Justice Department denied preclearance, and the court plan was used in 1996. It kept a single majority-Black district, in New Orleans, and dismantled the majority-Black 4th.

The court’s 5th district covered northeastern and central Louisiana, including Monroe and Alexandria, and no incumbent lived in it. Congressional Quarterly described the district as largely conservative and rural, with Black residents nearly one-third of the population. McCrery ran in the redrawn 4th rather than the 5th.

Louisiana then chose House members in a nonpartisan blanket primary. Every candidate appeared on the same ballot; a majority elected a candidate outright, and otherwise the top two, regardless of party, advanced to a runoff. An unopposed candidate was declared elected and was not listed on the ballot.

Six candidates ran. In the September 21, 1996, primary Cooksey received 60,853 votes (33.64 percent). Democratic state representative Francis Thompson was second with 50,144 (27.72 percent), and former Republican representative Clyde C. Holloway third with 48,226 (26.66 percent). Democrat [Michael Jordan](/people/michael-jordan) Caire received 9,286 (5.13 percent), Republican Ben Marshall 7,106 (3.93 percent), and Republican Tim Robinson 5,268 (2.91 percent). The total was 180,883 votes, and Cooksey and Thompson advanced. Holloway had represented a central Louisiana district from 1987 to 1993. Paired with Republican Richard H. Baker after the state lost a seat, he lost to Baker in 1992, ran against Jimmy Hayes in 1994, and finished fourth, with 5 percent, for governor in 1991. He said the new 5th, which included some of his old parishes, fit him “to a tee,” but Thompson and Cooksey were already campaigning when he entered.

Cooksey presented himself as a “citizen candidate” and Thompson as a career politician. Thompson called Cooksey a “rich doctor” who did not understand the district—“a Grey Poupon sort of guy”—and said he had “been in the trenches here for over 30 years.” Cooksey’s campaign distributed newspapers through the district, and the state [Republican Party](/organizations/republican-party) paid for television advertisements attacking Thompson’s votes in the legislature to raise taxes. On November 5 Cooksey defeated Thompson, 135,990 votes (58.28 percent) to 97,363 (41.72 percent), out of 233,353.

In that campaign he favored term limits for members of Congress and for federal judges. *Campaigns & Elections* later named him among five House Republicans who had signed a 1996 pledge to leave office by 2002.

### Reelections in 1998 and 2000

Before the next election, a federal ruling moved congressional voting off the old primary date. In July 1998 the Fifth Circuit, on remand from the Supreme Court in *Love v. Foster and McKeithen*, set November 3, 1998, as election day, with a December 5 runoff only if nobody won a majority. Cooksey had no opponent. Under the statute, an unopposed candidate was declared elected and was not printed on the ballot, and the clerk of the House recorded the seat with no vote total.

In 2000, candidates for Congress again did not run in a separate primary. The election was November 7, and a runoff was set for December 9 if no candidate won a majority. Cooksey received 123,975 votes (69.08 percent). Democrat Roger Beall received 42,977 (23.95 percent), Democrat Sam Houston Melton Jr. 7,186 (4.00 percent), and Raymond A. “Chuck” Dumas 5,335 (2.97 percent), out of 179,473. No runoff was held.

He did not seek another House term. The 1996 pledge reported in 1999 was to leave by 2002, and the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress records that he was not a candidate for reelection to the 108th Congress.

## Congressional service

### Committees and district projects

Cooksey, a Republican, represented Louisiana's 5th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from January 3, 1997, to January 3, 2003, the 105th through 107th Congresses. The district, with offices in Monroe and Alexandria, covered a largely rural band of northern and central Louisiana, including all or part of Avoyelles, Caldwell, Catahoula, Concordia, East Carroll, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Madison, Morehouse, Rapides, Richland, Tensas, Union, West Carroll, and Winn parishes.

He sat on the Committee on Agriculture for all three terms. In the 105th Congress its roster placed him on Forestry, Resource Conservation, and Research and on General Farm Commodities; in the 106th and, as of the December 2001 directory, the 107th, he served on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry. In the 105th Congress he was also on Veterans' Affairs and that committee's Health Subcommittee. From the 106th Congress he was on International Relations: Asia and the Pacific and International Economic Policy and Trade in the 106th, and, by December 2001, Europe and the Middle East and South Asia.

On Transportation and Infrastructure he served on Aviation throughout and, in the 105th Congress, on Public Buildings and Economic Development, which his official biography listed him as vice chair of. In the 106th Congress he was vice chairman of Economic Development, Public Buildings, Hazardous Materials, and Pipeline Transportation. The December 2001 directory listed him as vice chairman of Aviation and as a member of Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management. Aviation's jurisdiction included the post-September 11 airport-security bills. On November 1, 2001, the House passed H.R. 3150, the Secure Transportation for America Act, 286–139, and Cooksey voted yea. On April 17, 2002, he wrote Speaker [J. Dennis Hastert](/people/dennis-hastert) that he was resigning his seat on Transportation and Infrastructure effective that day; the House accepted the resignation the next day.

The main district highway project written into law during his tenure was in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (Public Law 105-178), signed June 9, 1998. Section 1602 authorized $30 million, in the statute's millions-of-dollars table, for fiscal years 1998 through 2003 for high-priority project No. 824, "Improve U.S. 165 from Alexandria to Monroe." A Federal Highway Administration allocation table shows $3.3 million of that amount made available for fiscal year 1998. The project line does not name a sponsor. In an October 24, 2002, Louisiana Public Broadcasting program, Cooksey said he had obtained an earmark for Highway 165, which he described as running through the middle of his district.

### Health policy

Cooksey's health bills were tax measures referred to Ways and Means, and none became law. On May 13, 1997, he introduced H.R. 1582, to amend section 220 of the Internal Revenue Code on medical savings accounts. The bill would have struck the numerical cap and the termination date on the accounts and removed eligibility limits that tied them to employment and to who could hold one.

He then offered a broader tax-credit proposal twice. H.R. 4925, the Patient Access, Choice, and Equity Act of 2000, was introduced on July 24, 2000. H.R. 2250, the Patient Access, Choice, and Equity Act of 2001, followed on June 20, 2001, with 24 original cosponsors, among them Majority Leader [Dick Armey](/people/dick-armey). The 2001 bill's stated purpose was "more equitable and direct tax relief for health insurance and medical care expenses," more options for obtaining care, and coverage for people without insurance. A qualified individual could claim a refundable fixed-amount credit for qualified health-insurance premiums, limited to $1,000 for the taxpayer, $1,000 for a spouse on a joint return, and $500 for each dependent, and capped at $3,000, or instead elect a percentage credit on a sliding share of medical expenses, capped at $12,500, plus 25 percent of qualified Archer medical-savings-account contributions. The fixed credit was denied for anyone contributing to an Archer account, and the bill would have ended the deduction for Archer contributions made after December 31, 2002. Like H.R. 1582 and H.R. 4925, it stopped at referral to Ways and Means.

### Agriculture, trade, and foreign affairs

On the 2002 farm bill, H.R. 2646, Cooksey voted yea on House passage on October 5, 2001 (291–120) and yea on the conference report on May 2, 2002 (280–141). President George W. Bush signed the conference report on May 13, 2002, as the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, Public Law 107-171. The act defined wheat, corn, grain sorghum, barley, oats, upland cotton, rice, soybeans, and other oilseeds as covered commodities. For rice it set a direct-payment rate of $2.35 per hundredweight, a counter-cyclical target price of $10.50 per hundredweight for the 2002 through 2007 crops, and a marketing-loan rate of $6.50 per hundredweight.

On trade, he voted with most Republicans for two bills that divided the House. On May 24, 2000, the House passed H.R. 4444, to authorize extension of nondiscriminatory treatment—normal trade relations—to the People's Republic of China, 237–197 (Republicans 164–57). Cooksey voted aye. The measure is the House vote associated with permanent normal trade relations for China. On December 6, 2001, he voted aye on H.R. 3005, the Bipartisan Trade Promotion Authority Act, which passed 215–214 and would have given the president fast-track authority to negotiate trade agreements that Congress could accept or reject without amendment. His International Relations assignments tracked those issues: trade and Asia in the 106th Congress, and Europe and the Middle East and South Asia by late 2001.

### Roll-call record

Voteview records 2,977 roll-call votes cast by Cooksey and 388 absences over the three Congresses, so he missed about 11.5 percent of 3,365 votes. Attendance—votes cast divided by votes cast plus absences—was 92.4 percent in the 105th Congress (1,077 of 1,166), 86.4 percent in the 106th (1,045 of 1,209), and 86.4 percent in the 107th (855 of 990). Median attendance in the same Voteview files was about 97 percent for the House and for House Republicans in each of those Congresses.

On party-unity roll calls, defined in Voteview's continuation of Keith Poole's scores as votes on which the two major parties' majority positions differed, and counting only unity votes he cast, he voted with the Republican majority 94.8 percent of the time in the 105th Congress (547 of 577), 84.9 percent in the 106th (406 of 478), and 97.5 percent in the 107th (358 of 367). Median House party unity in that file was 91.8, 91.7, and 94.2 percent in those Congresses; the House Republican medians were 92.4, 92.0, and 95.3 percent. His first-dimension DW-NOMINATE score is 0.334. Voteview's summary for the 107th Congress places him as more conservative than 64 percent of the House and more liberal than 69 percent of Republicans.

## September 2001 remarks

### Radio interview

On Monday, September 17, 2001, six days after the September 11 attacks, Representative John Cooksey of Louisiana spoke with Jeff Palermo of the Louisiana Network in Baton Rouge, also identified in press accounts as the Louisiana Radio Network. Asked whether Americans should expect to lose some civil liberties, he said anyone fitting a profile “can expect” and “is more likely” to be stopped on mass transit or in a vehicle that could carry a weapon of mass destruction, and he called that “racial profiling.”

Cooksey told *The Advocate* that the network’s tape was accurate and in context. As transcribed from that playback, he said: “If I see someone (who) comes in that’s got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over.”

*The Advocate* reported that on Monday Attorney General [John Ashcroft](/people/john-ashcroft) had said racial profiling is illegal and that the investigation would follow the Constitution. Told of that on Tuesday, Cooksey said he hoped no more Americans would die “because of a failure to recognize” that “100 percent of the people who were involved in this, met a certain profile,” and that further deaths from trying “not to be politically correct” would be “a tragedy.” Non-citizens “of Arab descent” who fit that profile, he said, should be scrutinized “until this war on terrorism is over.” He acknowledged that some people in turbans are American citizens and that not everyone wearing one is Arab or Muslim, then said, “No, but bin Laden does,” and that Osama bin Laden, whom U.S. officials had named the prime suspect, “always wears a turban.” The same account noted that on the day of the interview George W. Bush toured a mosque while administration spokesmen asked Americans not to blame all Muslims or all Arabs for the attacks on the Pentagon and New York City.

### Criticism

On September 19 the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee quoted him as saying that “someone who comes in that’s got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around that diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over,” and called the remark racist amid what it described as a backlash against Arab Americans. President Ziad Asali said it was “totally unacceptable” for a member of Congress to utter “such hateful and irresponsible words,” called them “a disgrace to Congress and to the medical profession,” and said Cooksey owed Arab Americans and the nation an apology. Protecting civil rights, Asali said, was not “simply trying to be ‘politically correct.’”

Sikh organizations answered separately: for Sikhs, a turban is a required article of faith, and most people who wear turbans in the United States are Sikhs rather than Arabs or Muslims. On September 20 the Sikh Mediawatch and Resource Task Force (SMART), later the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, asked Sikhs to call and write Cooksey. The appeal said an apology that he had been targeting bin Laden was not an apology to Sikh Americans, and that he still supported profiling. Executive director Manjit Singh called the comments “unpatriotic” when the president had asked Americans to stand together, and said they “only further the goals of the terrorists.”

In its 2002 report *We Are Not the Enemy*, Human Rights Watch quoted the line from Joan McKinney’s September 19 *Advocate* article and placed it, with a remark by Representative [Saxby Chambliss](/people/saxby-chambliss) about arresting Muslims, among statements it described as contempt or bias against Arabs and Muslims; the report said both men later apologized. Agence France-Presse reported that the White House said on September 26 that Bush was “very disturbed” by the description of turbans. The same dispatch said a Cooksey representative told *[The Washington Post](/organizations/the-washington-post)* that the larger point was valid: “Obviously suspicious people should be checked out.”

### Apology

By Thursday, September 20, Cooksey was treating the wording as the error. A *Gambit* column published September 24 quoted him: “My choice of words was not a good choice of words.” SMART said that apology described the target as bin Laden and neither addressed Sikh Americans nor dropped his support for profiling.

On September 21 he spoke in the House. The Congressional Record printed the speech at pages H5919–H5920 under the heading “Apology to Sikhs, Muslims, and Anyone Else Taking Offense at Prior Statements.” He said Sikhs, Muslims, and others facing harassment had taken the statement as offensive, that he was “sorry for any distress my statement caused,” and that he did not approve of harassment or violence against any American. He then repeated the screening argument: “if a person fits the established profile of a terrorist, that person should expect to be looked at closely by airport security, given the atrocity of September 11.”

He said many Sikhs were being harassed for beards and turbans required by their religion, described Sikhism as an independent monotheistic faith sometimes mistaken for Islam or Hinduism, and put their numbers at 21 million worldwide, most in India’s Punjab, and about 500,000 in the United States, most of them citizens. “Most of the people who wear turbans in this country are Sikhs,” he said, and persecuting them “only weakens American unity.” He said he stood “shoulder to shoulder” with Sikhs, Muslims, and others facing harassment. The regret for the wording did not withdraw the screening claim. He had already said he would leave the House and run for the Senate against [Mary Landrieu](/people/mary-landrieu), and within days the remarks were being treated as an issue in that race.

## 2002 Senate campaign

### Candidacy and the Republican field

Cooksey did not seek a fourth term in the United States House of Representatives. In 1996 he was one of five House Republicans—with Bob Schaffer, Ron Lewis, Rick Hill, and [John Thune](/people/john-thune)—who signed a pledge, promoted by term-limits groups, vowing to leave office by 2002. He instead ran for the United States Senate seat held by Democratic senator Mary Landrieu. He filed a statement of candidacy with the [Federal Election Commission](/organizations/federal-election-commission) on January 18, 2001. On January 16, 2002, he announced the campaign at the Ramada Inn in Houma, during a statewide tour, as the second Republican to enter after Public Service Commissioner Jay Blossman. The Monroe ophthalmologist told supporters the choice was a senator aligned with President George W. Bush or with Majority Leader [Tom Daschle](/people/tom-daschle), faulted Landrieu over coastal-restoration legislation that had stalled in the Senate, and said that if several Republicans stayed in, the aim was to hold Landrieu under a majority in Louisiana's all-party primary and force a runoff.

Blossman was not on the November ballot. [The Republicans](/organizations/the-republicans) who qualified were state elections commissioner Suzanne Haik Terrell; state Representative Tony Perkins, whom the *[New York](/organizations/new-york) Times* described as popular with social conservatives; and Ernest Edward Skillman Jr. Democrat Raymond Brown and three candidates the state listed outside the major parties also qualified. On August 23, 2002, Governor [Mike Foster](/people/mike-foster) ruled out his own candidacy, citing a duty to finish his term, and endorsed Cooksey.

National Republican money did not follow that endorsement. The *Times* reported that Cooksey had started early but "stumbled badly" after the September 11 attacks, when he said anyone with "a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped about the diaper" needed to be pulled over, and that Terrell entered later at the urging of party officials in Washington, who contributed close to $500,000 to her campaign. The same account said the National Republican Senatorial Committee financed more than $3 million in advertising that sought to portray Landrieu as too liberal for the state. A *Time* column published by CNN called Cooksey the early favorite and wrote that the national party abandoned him after the remark, with Terrell little known until she finished ahead of him.

Cooksey for Senate reported $2,101,540 in receipts from January 1, 2001, through December 31, 2002: $1,532,771 from individuals, $243,325 transferred from his other authorized committees, $225,000 in loans from the candidate, $81,725 from other committees, and $7,600 from party committees. The committee disbursed $2,101,245. At the June 30, 2001, report, before the Houma announcement, the campaign had collected $393,819, while Landrieu had reported raising more than $1.3 million.

### Primary result

The November 5, 2002, primary placed every candidate for the Senate on one ballot. A majority was required to win outright; otherwise the top two met in a December 7 runoff. With all 3,912 precincts reporting, the secretary of state recorded 1,246,333 votes. Landrieu received 573,347 (46.00 percent), Terrell 339,506 (27.24 percent), Cooksey 171,752 (13.78 percent), and Perkins 119,776 (9.61 percent). Brown received 23,553 (1.89 percent), and the other four candidates together received 18,399. Landrieu and Terrell advanced.

Landrieu, speaking in New Orleans, said she was ready to campaign another four weeks. Terrell, in Baton Rouge, said the race had become a one-on-one contest. Analyst John Maginnis told the *Times* that rain held down turnout and that Landrieu had trouble energizing Democratic voters, including some Black leaders who felt taken for granted. By election night Republicans had already gained a Senate majority through a victory in Missouri, so the Louisiana runoff no longer decided control of the chamber.

On December 7, Landrieu defeated Terrell, 638,654 votes (51.70 percent) to 596,642 (48.30 percent), out of 1,235,296 ballots, again with every precinct reporting. In the weeks before that vote, Foster, who had endorsed Cooksey in the primary, joined Terrell at an event with Vice President [Dick Cheney](/people/dick-cheney), and the White House was preparing a Bush appearance in the state on her behalf.

### Open House seat

The Senate candidacy left Louisiana's 5th congressional district open. On November 5, Democrat Rodney Alexander led a seven-candidate field with 52,952 votes (28.68 percent). Republican Lee Fletcher, listed in the 1999 *Congressional Directory* as Cooksey's administrative assistant, was second with 45,278 (24.52 percent). Clyde C. Holloway received 42,573 (23.06 percent) and Robert J. Barham 34,533 (18.70 percent); three other candidates split the rest of 184,657 votes. Alexander and Fletcher advanced.

In the December 7 runoff Alexander defeated Fletcher, 86,718 (50.28 percent) to 85,744 (49.72 percent), a margin of 974 votes out of 172,462, with all 746 precincts reporting. Alexander had won as a Democrat. On August 6, 2004, he changed his registration to Republican in the last minutes of qualifying for that year's ballot, telling the Associated Press that his conservative votes had drawn Democratic criticism and that he would be more effective in the district as a Republican.

## Later years and death

### Return to practice

Cooksey did not run for another term in the United States House of Representatives in 2002 and was an unsuccessful candidate for nomination to the United States Senate. After he left electoral politics, he returned to Monroe and resumed the ophthalmology practice he had based there for many years. A resolution of the Louisiana House of Representatives, enrolled after his death, recorded that return to practice. His family said he had kept the office open while serving in Congress and that he went back to it full time afterward, while continuing to support candidates. The Associated Press later described him as a Monroe eye surgeon who had treated thousands of patients.

When he retired from medicine, he lived on a farm in Caldwell Parish, a short drive from the Central Louisiana communities where he had grown up. The family account said those years were spent with a large personal library, with friends and relatives, and with history and public affairs, and remembered him as a listener and storyteller who “knew no strangers.”

### Death and tributes

Cooksey died on June 4, 2022, at the age of 80. His family said he died at the farm; the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress records Columbia as the place of death and Old Bethel Cemetery in Clarks as the place of interment. News reports stated that no cause of death had been released. A celebration of life was held at 10:30 a.m. on June 17 at First United Methodist Church in Columbia, after visitation the afternoon of June 16 at Riser Funeral Home.

*First United Methodist Church in Columbia, Louisiana, where a memorial service for John Cooksey was held on June 17, 2022.*

He was survived by his wife of 55 years, Ann Grabill Cooksey, whom he had married in 1967, and by their daughters Karen Rose and her husband Tom, Carol Ann Casagrande and her husband Dominic, and Catherine Traylor and her husband Daniel. Also surviving were seven grandchildren—Sarah, Grace, Sophie, Claire, Charlotte, Lilly, and Margot—a sister, Betty Nethery, and a brother, Hank Cooksey.

On June 15, 2022, Governor John Bel Edwards ordered the flags of the United States and of Louisiana flown at half-staff over the State Capitol and all state buildings from sunrise on June 16 until sunset on June 17. Edwards said Cooksey left “a long legacy of service to our state and nation that will not soon be forgotten,” and that he had served “from the Air Force to Congress to his medical practice as an ophthalmologist.”

U.S. Representative Julia Letlow, who then held the same district seat, called him “a selfless and dedicated public servant” and a mentor, and credited him with giving her late husband, Luke Letlow, his start in politics. After the Columbia service she said he had told her not to forget the people she served, and that she could think of “no greater example” of that standard. Camp Kaufman, who helped run Cooksey’s first two House campaigns and later served as his communications director, told *The News-Star* that Cooksey looked for ways to help people “whether he knew them or not,” both in Congress and in the community.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology published a member obituary identifying him as an Academy Life Fellow and as the first ophthalmologist to serve in the House. The state House resolution extended condolences to his family and recognized his military service and his years in public office.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/john-cooksey