Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 10-18-19

Political News
Rep. Elijah Cummings, Key Figure In The Pres. Trump Impeachment Inquiry, Dies At 68
U. S. Rep. Elijah Cum- mings of Baltimore, a com- mittee chairman known for his devotion to Baltimore and civil rights and for blunt and passionate speechmak- ing, died of longstanding health problems early Thursday morning, his of- fice said. He was 68 years old.
The Democrat, a key fig- ure in the impeachment in- quiry into President Donald Trump as chair- man of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, died at Gilchrist Hospice Care, a Johns Hopkins affil- iate, at approximately 2:45 A.M., a spokeswoman said.
Cummings, who had
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS
years. In 2017, he under- went an aortic valve re- placement. The procedure, which aides described as minimally invasive in Cum- mings’ case, is used to cor- rect narrowing of the aortic valve in the heart. The sur- gery led to an infection that kept him in the hospital longer than expected. He was later hospitalized for a knee infection, but he said this summer that his health was fine.
Cummings had not par- ticipated in a roll call vote since Sept. 11. His office said recently that he had under- gone a medical procedure but the seriousness of his condition had not been known.
The committee he chaired, Oversight and Re- form, is among three panels leading the impeachment inquiry of Trump, a Re- publican.
A former Maryland state delegate and trial attorney, Cummings became a na- tional figure in 2019 as chairman of the committee. With Democrats assuming the House majority after the 2018 elections, he won the ability to demand docu- ments related to Trump’s personal finances and poli- cies, as well as possible abuses at federal agencies in the Trump administration.
Pundits had speculated before the change of power in the House that Cum- mings, who could be bois- terous in his questioning of witnesses, might become a “nightmare” for Trump, a Republican.
“Are we going to be the nightmare? It’s in the eyes of the beholder,” he told The Baltimore Sun before as- cending to the chairman- ship.
Cummings clashed with the administration over a number of issues, in- cluding the high cost of pre- scription drugs, a longtime concern of his. His commit- tee engaged in a protracted court fight with the admin- istration over subpoenas — challenged by the president — of Trump’s personal
and financial records. Cummings said he
h a d just a single one-on- one conversation with the president. It was in 2017 when both were working on plans to lower drug prices.
Cummings said he then told Trump that “we don’t need to be doing mean things. We don’t need to be just representing 30-some- thing percent of the people that like us. You need to represent all the people.”
Cummings particularly resented Trump’s tweet over the summer of 2019 that four Democratic con- gresswomen of color should "go back” to other coun- tries. He said it recalled the summer of 1962, when white mobs taunted and threw rocks and bottles at Cummings and other African American kids seeking to integrate the Riverside Park pool in South Baltimore.
“I don’t think these Re- publicans or Trump fully understand what it feels like to be treated like less than a dog,” Cummings told the Baltimore Sun.
Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democrat who is the senior member of Maryland’s con- gressional delegation, said Cummings’ loss “leaves an irreplaceable void in our hearts, in our Maryland and in our Congress. Quite pos- sibly no elected official mat- tered so much to his constituents.”
“I feel as though I lost a member of my family,” said former Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke. “We were that close. He cared about people and making life better for others.”
Cummings was born in 1951 and raised in Balti- more, where he continued to live.
He was one of seven chil- dren of Robert Cum- mings Sr. and Ruth Elma Cummings, née Cochran, who were share- croppers on land where their ancestors were en- slaved. The couple moved to Baltimore in the late 1940s.
been absent from Capitol Hill in recent weeks while
under medical attention, had health issues in recent
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