Gerry Cohen (politician)

Gerry Cohen is a former member of the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen (now the Chapel Hill Town Council). Cohen was elected in 1973 on the strength of an upsurge in youth voting brought about in part by the war in Vietnam and the ratification of the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Among the candidates he defeated for the council seat was Alexander Julian.^[1] Cohen was a law student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the time. Cohen was a significant political figure in Chapel Hill throughout the 1970s, helping to establish the town's public transportation system, Chapel Hill Transit.

Cohen joined the staff of the North Carolina General Assembly's Legislative Drafting Division in 1977 and was the director of the Division for 31 years.^[2] He served as the Special Counsel to the North Carolina General Assembly from 2012 until his retirement on August 1, 2014. Ahead of his retirement, Governor Pat McCrory honored Cohen with induction into the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.^[1][3]

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