He wasn't intimidated by threats from certain businesses to, say, punish Suffolk by moving elsewhere.
As president of his family's firm, Spectronics Corporation in Westbury, which does $25 million yearly in sales of ultraviolet equipment, he can afford his own wheels. He isn't in it for the $72,937 salary, although he doesn't turn it down - ''Not with five kids to put through college'' - but he doesn't accept a county-issued car, cellphone or beeper. ''Helping things like this happen are the only reason I got into politics.'' ''The handwriting is on the wall the days of ephedra are numbered,'' says Mr. Ephedra, a popular herbal supplement marketed as a muscle-building, fat-burning aid and unofficially linked to 100 deaths and 16,000 medical problems, will be banned from sale in Suffolk County. Cooper, 48, who comes by his fast metabolism and prematurely gray hair naturally, is now having the same censorious impact on ephedra that he had on cellphones. And any Suffolk constituent who doesn't like it can blame him. Cooper, an avowed chatterbox, spends 3,000 minutes a month on his cellphone - name a millionaire who doesn't - but when he's feeling loquacious behind the wheel, he uses his headset. Walks fast, talks fast, and drives a car bearing a bumper sticker that reads: ''Hang Up and Drive.'' AS usual, multitasking has turned into overtasking, and he's running late: that's why Jon Cooper, the Democratic legislator from Huntington and main bane of the ephedra industry, just zoomed up his driveway in his green BMW as if egged on by a checkered flag.