Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I certainly support this legislation to pay tribute to the giant Elijah Cummings. I have so many memories of Elijah. The first memory I have is that we both represented Baltimore for many years together. I started to notice that he and I, even though we represented different parts of Baltimore, there would be events that were for the benefit of the entire city, and we would always be showing up at those together. It gave me great pride because I felt like that showed we had some shared values about what was important. His leadership in those places was unrivaled. A second observation I have is that--and certainly Kweisi knows this intimately--Elijah was always the person who the family wanted to come to give the eulogy at the funeral. It was because oftentimes he had a deep connection to the family that made a difference. They also knew that he would articulate what that person had meant to the community better than anybody else could. It was always an inspirational time when you would sit there and hear those powerful words with that powerful voice kind of enveloping you. The thing I remember most is the story he would tell about when he was sworn in and his father was sitting up in the gallery. Many of us know this story. His father began to cry. Afterward, Elijah went to him and said that he noticed that he was crying. He had never seen his father cry. He observed that not even when his own mother died had his father cried. He asked why he had been crying.…”