By Mary Beth Schneider
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS—I try to stay focused on Indiana, as there are plenty of other people writing about everything great and small in Washington, D.C.

But Thursday morning I woke to the news that Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Baltimore, had died. I never met him except a distance at national conventions, and he certainly never heard my name much less my voice. Yet I felt, as I’m sure many people did,  that he knew me. Because he had an amazing ability to seem to speak for all Americans seeking a more perfect union and to be a passionate voice on behalf of his mostly black, often poor, totally urban constituents while reaching out to everyone who was willing to reach back.

We are told so often that the kind of Washington where bipartisanship is possible is dead. And Wednesday, just hours before Cummings death, we got a prime example of that when President Trump blasted at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, hurling insults and prompting her and other Democratic legislative leaders to leave the White House.

Yet Cummings’ life showed that fiery advocacy doesn’t exclude forging respect and friendships. It might seem hard to find two people more different than Cummings, the son of sharecroppers, and Mark Meadows, a white Republican from North Carolina, yet they were friends. Cummings famously called Meadows one of his best friends, as he defended Meadows from suggestions that he was a racist.

When Trump attacked Cummings on Twitter as both a racist and “a brutal bully,” Meadows’ response was weak, saying that neither Trump nor Cummings was a racist. But the fact that it came at all says more about Cummings than it does about Meadows. It turns out, many Republicans called him a friend. Thursday morning, Rep. Jackie Walorski, the Republican who represents Indiana’s 2nd congressional district, tweeted that she was “deeply saddened to learn of the passing of my friend and colleague Rep. Elijah Cummings.”

Former Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, tweeted that “my heart is broken. Just broken.”

During the House committee hearings investigating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s role in the Benghazi debacle, Cummings fiercely defended Clinton just as the chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, fiercely attacked. But Gowdy praised Cummings then.

“It’s not about politics to him. He says what he believes,” Gowdy told The Hill newspaper. “… With Mr. Cummings, it’s coming from his soul.”

Thursday morning, Gowdy — who was enlisted to defend Trump just as Cummings was among the leaders of the effort to impeach him — eulogized Cummings in a thread of eight tweets as “one of the most powerful, beautiful & compelling voices in American politics.”

They seldom agreed, Gowdy said, but “we never had a crossword outside of a committee room… The story of Elijah’s life would benefit everyone, regardless of political ideation.”

I learned a lot I didn’t know about Cummings reading his obituaries. A grade school counselor had told him that he was a poor-speaking slow learner and would never fulfill his dream of being a lawyer. I learned from Gowdy’s tweet that that counselor became attorney Cummings’ first client.

Cummings, who had suffered from health problems in recent years, knew his time was limited. His debut floor speech in Congress, in 1996, was about making the most of every minute. It’s why he reached out to President Trump at his inauguration to talk to him about the need to lower prescription drug prices. Trump invited him to the Oval Office to discuss Cummings’ bill to do that, The Washington Post reported and called him later to say he planned to take action. Cummings never heard from him again.

But Trump heard from Cummings who as the oversight committee chairman began to investigate Trump.

As a tearful Michael Cohen, Trump’s now-imprisoned former attorney sat before him, Cummings spoke of his hope that this painful episode of American history will lead to “a better Donald Trump, a better United States of America and a better world. And I mean that from the depths of my heart. When we’re dancing with the angels, the question we’ll be asked: In 2019, what did we do to make sure we kept our democracy intact?’’

Cummings is dancing with the angels and can answer he did his best. Now his colleagues have to think about how they can answer that question. Too many people Thursday called Cummings “irreplaceable.”

He’d tell them that that better not be true. He’d tell them to do their jobs.

FOOTNOTE: Mary Beth Schneider is an editor at TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalists.

The City-County Observer posted this article without editing.

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