The late Rep. Elijah E. Cummings was hailed as the “North Star” for fellow House Democrats as congressional leaders and colleagues paid tribute to him at a Capitol ceremony Thursday. By day, Cummings was at the Capitol in the halls of power, McConnell said, but at night he returned to Baltimore to encourage unity. Let’s all go home,” McConnell recalled Cummings saying at the time. Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican who frequently sparred with Cummings on the Oversight and Reform Committee, called Cummings a close friend whose “smile would consume his whole face.”But Cummings “also had eyes that would pierce through anybody that was standing in his way,” Meadows recalled. Cummings is just the third African American to lie in honor at the Capitol and the first black lawmaker.

Source: Los Angeles Times October 24, 2019 13:11 UTC