About Thornton
Get to know Thornton
Thornton Cooper is a native and resident of South Charleston, an attorney, and a retired state employee. 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.
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
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 76, 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, 43, 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, 40, who works in commercial strategy and operations for LexisNexis Legal & Professional, graduated from George Washington High School and West Virginia University, received his master's degree from the University of Tennessee–Knoxville, and lives near Dayton, Ohio, with his wife Pam, daughter Larkin, and son Zane.