Elijah Cummings

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Elijah Cummings (2013) signature

Elijah Eugene Cummings (born January 18, 1951 in Baltimore , Maryland ; † October 17, 2019 there ) was an American politician of the Democratic Party . From 1996 until his death, he represented Maryland's 7th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives .

Family, education and work

Elijah Cummings was one of seven children in a working class family. His parents moved from a farm in South Carolina , where they Sharecropper had been saved to Maryland in an apartment house and until 1963 a house in a desegregierten could move into neighborhoods. Cummings first got involved in the civil rights movement when he was eleven when he and other students demonstrated for the desegregation of a swimming pool.

By 1969, Cummings attended Baltimore City College high school and then studied at Howard University in Washington , which he graduated in 1973 with a bachelor's degree in political science . After completing a law degree at the University of Maryland in Baltimore ( Juris Doctor 1976), he began to work as a lawyer after his admission in 1976. In the meantime he was the presiding judge on the Maryland Moot Court Board .

He was married to Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, who runs a policy consulting firm in Washington, and who ran for the 2018 Democratic nomination for Maryland governorate . They had three children and lived in Baltimore. Cummings was a Baptist .

Cummings died on October 17, 2019 in Baltimore after prolonged health problems.

Political career

Between 1983 and 1996 Cummings sat in the Maryland House of Representatives , of which he was President from 1995 - the highest office ever held by an African American in Maryland. From 1984 he was also chairman of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus .

After the resignation of MP Kweisi Mfume , Cummings was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington in the by-election due on April 16, 1996 for the seventh congressional electoral district of Maryland, where he began work on April 26, 1996. In the Democratic primary election he had beaten 26 competitors and in the main election the Republican Kenneth Konder with over 80 percent of the vote. After eleven re-elections with well over 70 percent of the vote, most recently in 2018, his mandate in the 116th Congress of the United States ran until his death. Cummings represented much of the city of Baltimore and its relatively affluent suburbs. The constituency was mostly inhabited by African Americans. Cummings used his rhetorical talent, among other things, for the concerns of the poor and drug addicts.

Cummings has served on committees on transportation and infrastructure , oversight and government reform ( oversight ), and several sub-committees.

From January 2019 until his death, Cummings chaired the Committee on Oversight and Reform , which, following the 2018 election among the Democratic majority, holds a key position in investigations into Donald Trump's presidency . As such, he headed the survey of Michael Cohen on February 27, 2019 , who provided information on this as Donald Trump's former personal lawyer . When Cummings conducted further investigations against President Trump, the latter attacked him in July 2019 for the poverty of his constituency. Trump described Baltimore as a "rat infested mess" (rodent-infested mess), in which no one wants to live, which led to the accusation of racism because of the predominantly African-American population of this area. Cummings played a key role in the House of Representatives impeachment investigation into President Trump that began in September 2019 . Carolyn B. Maloney succeeds him in the chairmanship of the committee .

At times he was also a member of the Joint Economic Committee and the House Select Committee on Benghazi . He was part of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and temporarily chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus , the association of African-American congressmen.

Prior to the 2008 presidential election , Cummings founded the 2007 Maryland Grass Roots Campaign , an initiative that campaigned for Barack Obama's election . Cummings, who was a member of the Boy Scouts of America and various social initiatives, was a member of the Democratic National Committee , the federal party organization , from 2004 until his death .

Positions

In the Maryland House of Representatives, Cummings was considered a downright left-wing liberal (American " liberal ") and at the same time a skilful consensus maker. For his district in western Baltimore , which was mainly inhabited by African-Americans, he campaigned for better health care, network expansion, gun control and jobs through partnership with companies.

In Congress , too , Cummings belonged to the left wing of his party. He voted there in 1996, among other things, against the social security reform negotiated by President Bill Clinton and the Republicans , which severely restricted benefits, and against the ban on public training for illegal immigrants and against term limits.

Web links

Commons : Elijah Cummings  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Elijah Cummings  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Brian Witte, Regina Garcia Cano: Rep. Elijah Cummings was a sharecropper's son, took on Trump. In: Associated Press , October 17, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Alton Hornsby: Elijah E. Cummings (1951-2019). In: blackpast.org , February 24, 2008 (English).
  3. ^ Brian Witte: Maya Cummings withdraws from Maryland governor's race. In: Seattle Times , January 5, 2018.
  4. ↑ Elijah Cummings' Biography. In: Vote Smart ; Elijah E. Cummings. In: Congressional Directory , Washington, DC 2014, p. 124 (PDF) .
  5. ↑ Elijah Cummings Package. In: C-Span , April 26, 1996.
  6. ↑ Cummings, Elijah E. In: Our Campaigns.
  7. ^ Rep. Elijah Cummings. In: Govtrack.us.
  8. ^ Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation (115th Congress). In: United States House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure .
  9. ^ Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials (115th Congress). In: United States House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure .
  10. ↑ Thorsten Denkler: How the Democrats want to drive Trump in front of them. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , December 30, 2018.
  11. ↑ Alana Abramson: 'Not Here to Make Headlines.' Meet the Lawmaker Quietly Unearthing Trump Scandals. In: Time , February 20, 2019 (English).
  12. ^ Morgan Chalfant: Cummings says Cohen testimony raises 'great questions' about Trump's conduct. In: The Hill , February 27, 2019 (English).
  13. ↑ Elijah Cummings' Biography. In: Vote Smart.
  14. ↑ Elijah Cummings in the Notable Names Database (English)
personal data
SURNAME Cummings, Elijah
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cummings, Elijah Eugene (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Baltimore , Maryland
DATE OF DEATH 17th October 2019
Place of death Baltimore , Maryland