Rep. Elijah Cummings
Former Representative for Maryland’s 7th District
pronounced ee-LĪ-juh // KUM-ingz
Cummings was the representative for Maryland’s 7th congressional district and was a Democrat. He served from 1996 to 2019.
![Photo of Rep. Elijah Cummings [D-MD7, 1996-2019]](/static/legislator-photos/400090-200px.jpeg)
Analysis
Ideology–Leadership Chart
Cummings is shown as a purple triangle ▲ in our ideology-leadership chart below. Each dot was a member of the House of Representatives in 2020 positioned according to our ideology score (left to right) and our leadership score (leaders are toward the top).
The chart is based on the bills Cummings sponsored and cosponsored from Jan 6, 2015 to Dec 28, 2020. See full analysis methodology.
Enacted Legislation
Cummings was the primary sponsor of 23 bills that were enacted. The most recent include:
- H.R. 1966 (116th): Henrietta Lacks Enhancing Cancer Research Act of 2019
- H.R. 2004 (116th): Ensuring FEDVIP and FLTCIP Coverage During Shutdowns Act
- H.R. 1076 (116th): Fair Chance Act
- H.R. 135 (116th): Elijah E. Cummings Federal Employee Antidiscrimination Act of 2019
- H.R. 2229 (115th): All Circuit Review Act
- H.R. 3031 (115th): TSP Modernization Act of 2017
- H.R. 5920 (114th): Whistleblower Protections for Contractors Act
Does 23 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.
We consider a bill enacted if one of the following is true: a) it is enacted itself, b) it has a companion bill in the other chamber (as identified by Congress) which was enacted, or c) if at least about half of its provisions were incorporated into bills that were enacted (as determined by an automated text analysis, applicable beginning with bills in the 110th Congress).
Bills Sponsored
Issue Areas
Cummings sponsored bills primarily in these issue areas:
Government Operations and Politics (40%) Health (22%) Education (13%) Crime and Law Enforcement (12%) Finance and Financial Sector (6%)
Recently Introduced Bills
Cummings recently introduced the following legislation:
- H.R. 4622 (116th): Family Asthma Act
- H.R. 4467 (116th): Witness Security and Protection Grant Program Act of 2019
- H.R. 4012 (116th): Safeguarding Student Veterans Act
- H.R. 4011 (116th): Opportunity Zone Lead Remediation Impact Act of 2019
- H.Res. 497 (116th): Recommending that the House of Representatives find William P. Barr, Attorney General …
- H.R. 3469 (116th): Covert Testing and Risk Mitigation Improvement Act of 2019
- H.R. 2981 (116th): Parren Mitchell Minority Business Education and Empowerment Act of 2019
View All » | View Cosponsors »
Most legislation has no activity after being introduced.
Voting Record
Key Votes
Missed Votes
From Apr 1996 to Oct 2019, Cummings missed 859 of 15,591 roll call votes, which is 5.5%. This is much worse than the median of 2.3% among the lifetime records of representatives serving in Oct 2019. The chart below reports missed votes over time.
We don’t track why legislators miss votes, but it’s often due to medical absenses, major life events, and running for higher office.
Primary Sources
The information on this page is originally sourced from a variety of materials, including:
- unitedstates/congress-legislators, a community project gathering congressional information
- The House and Senate websites, for committee membership and voting records
- GPO Member Guide for the photo
- GovInfo.gov, for sponsored bills
