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Thornton Cooper is a native and
resident of South Charleston, an
attorney, and a retired state employee.
Between 2006 and 2015 Mr. Cooper
served on the Kanawha County
Democratic Executive Committee
(KCDEC), as a committeeman
representing Executive Committee
District 2-B. Since 2011, he has also
been serving as a committeeman for
his ward on the South Charleston
Democratic Executive Committee
(SCDEC) and as the Secretary of the
SCDEC. He is currently the Acting
Chairman of the SCDEC.
ISSUES
For decades, Thornton Cooper has, as
a private citizen, taken public
positions on dozens of matters of
public interest. He has also
commenced, or intervened in, several
court proceedings on such matters as
redistricting, gubernatorial succession,
the Charleston “user fee”, school
consolidation, and the proper
procedures for amending the West
Virginia Constitution.
Following the 1980, 1990, 2000,
2010, and 2020 Censuses, he
developed proposals for redistricting
West Virginia's congressional
districts, and following the 2010 and
2020 Censuses, he also developed
proposals for redistricting the State
Senate and the House of Delegates.
He has supported raising the minimum
wage, protecting the safety of the
state's drinking water, and preserving
state laws relating to the disposal of
solid waste.
He campaigned against a law passed
in 2014 that allows concealed
weapons to be brought into city
recreation facilities in Kanawha
County. He believes that city
governments should have the right to
ban concealed weapons in such
facilities.
EDUCATION AND FAMILY
Mr. Cooper, now 74, was born and
raised in South Charleston. His
brothers Tom (now deceased) and
John and he attended public schools
there. After graduating from South
Charleston High School in 1968, he
attended Yale University. In 1972, he
graduated from Yale with a B. A. in
Political Science. Between 1975 and
1978, he attended the West Virginia
University College of Law, where he
received his law degree (Juris Doctor)
in 1978.
His parents, now deceased, were
Thomas R. Cooper, Sr., an electrical
engineer and draftsman at the Union
Carbide Technical Center in South
Charleston, and Virginia Watson
Cooper, who taught English and Latin
at South Charleston Junior High
School, Stonewall Jackson High
School, and George Washington High
School.
Thornton Cooper has two sons:
Jeremy, 42, who graduated from
Charleston Catholic High School,
Oberlin College, and the West
Virginia University College of Law (J.
D. 2013), now practices law in West
Virginia and Pennsylvania and lives
with his wife Lacy, daughter Virginia,
and son Jude in Pittsburgh. Timothy,
38, a composer who graduated from
George Washington High School and
West Virginia University, received his
master's degree from the University of
Tennessee, and worked on his
doctorate at the University of
Hartford, lives with his wife Pam,
daughter Larkin, and son Zane in
Ohio.
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