Elijah Cummings, a towering figure on Capitol Hill who represented his home city of Baltimore in Congress for nearly a quarter century, has died. The Democratic leader, who did not return to Capitol Hill this week following a medical procedure, passed away early Thursday from longstanding health issues, his office announced. He was 68. “He worked until his last breath because he believed our democracy was the highest and best expression of our collective humanity and that our nation’s diversity was our promise, not our problem,” his wife, Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, said in a statement.
Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, was a son of sharecroppers who served as the first African-American Speaker Pro Tempore in the Maryland State House, and became a powerful and unifying voice for social justice, civil rights, and democratic values. He had been a leading critic of Donald Trump’s presidency and a key figure in the impeachment inquiry Democrats launched in recent weeks. He was a revered figure among both Democrats and Republicans for his principled stands and his eloquent oratory—including following the 2015 death of black teenager Freddie Gray in the custody of Baltimore police, when he demanded justice for the teen at his 2015 funeral, saying, “We will not rest until we address this and see that justice is done.”
Cummings was mourned by figures in Baltimore, Washington, and beyond as a “giant.” “At a time of chaos and division, our friend Elijah Cummings stood strong as a man of principle, unity, dignity, and compassion,” Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen said Thursday. “His insatiable thirst for justice was rooted in his core.” Republican Mark Meadows, one of the late congressman's closest friends, tweeted that “there was no stronger advocate and no better friend than Elijah Cummings...I will miss him dearly.” Added freshman lawmaker Ayanna Pressley, a member of Cummings’ Oversight committee and a fellow member of the Congressional Black Caucus: “Our Chairman leaves behind a beautiful and powerful legacy. I am already feeling the impact of a little less grace in the world.”
Cummings’ death comes as he helped lead an impeachment inquiry into Trump over the president’s attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son. Trump lashed out against that probe on Twitter several times Thursday morning before offering his “warmest condolences” to Cummings’ family and friends. “I got to see first hand the strength, passion and wisdom of this highly respected political leader,” Trump wrote. “His work and voice on so many fronts will be very hard, if not impossible, to replace!” (In the past, Trump and Cummings had skirmished, with Cummings standing up for his district, which the president tweeted was “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Cummings responded with characteristic grace, inviting Trump to visit the district and writing that while it is his “constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch,” it is his “moral duty to fight for my constituents.”)
The president has frequently cast the probes Cummings oversaw as politically-motivated, but the congressman often appealed beyond politics in defending the role of congressional oversight of the executive branch. “When we’re dancing with the angels, the question will be asked,” he said in a powerful closing statement at the Michael Cohen hearing earlier this year. “In 2019, what did we do to make sure we kept our democracy intact?...We can do more than one thing and we have got to get back to normal.”
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