Rep. Elijah Cummings (D) Elected April 1996, 4th term
Born:	Jan. 18, 1951, Baltimore
Home:	Baltimore
Education:	Howard U., B.S. 1973, U. of MD, J.D. 1976
Religion:	Baptist
Marital Status:	separated
Elected  Office:	MD House of Delegates, 1982-96, Speaker Pro-Tem, 1995-96.
Professional Career:	Practicing atty., 1976-96.
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At the junction of North and South, terminus of America's first railroad and the East Coast port closest to the great West, Baltimore is one of the few American cities to have had large numbers of both blacks and European immigrants throughout its history. Its black community has a rich and notable history: The Afro-American newspaper has been published here for more than 100 years and there was once a black symphony orchestra. Eubie Blake, the famous black musician and one of the founders of ragtime music, grew up here and now has a museum in his honor on Charles Street. Jazz great Billie Holliday was born here; these were the stomping grounds of Thurgood Marshall and Cab Calloway. Near downtown on the west side is the childhood home of Babe Ruth and the home of H.L. Mencken, two great white westside Baltimoreans. For years this side of town had a biracial, bipartisan politics in which Democrats like Governor Albert Ritchie and Republicans like Mayor and Governor Theodore McKeldin competed zestfully for black and white votes.

Baltimore has been a black-majority city since the late 1970s, and most of its westside neighborhoods are heavily black. Black Republicanism has long since died out, though Republican Bob Ehrlich and his running mate Michael Steele campaigned heavily in black areas and made small inroads among black voters in the 2002 race for governor. In the 1990s Baltimore had a terrible crime wave, and with open drug markets on both the west and east sides; this was not suppressed by 12-year Mayor Kurt Schmoke, who called for consideration of drug legalization. Martin O'Malley, the new mayor elected in 1999, has taken a different approach, promising to build "a new Baltimore" with "zero tolerance" of crime.

Maryland's 7th Congressional District includes most of Baltimore city's black neighborhoods and reaches into the heavily black suburbs running west from the city, to Catonsville along the old Baltimore National Pike, and also extends west to include most of suburban Howard County. Democratic redistricters added Howard County in 2002 (and removed some black Baltimore neighborhoods) to strengthen Democrats' chances of capturing the mostly suburban 2d District (which they did). Howard County is quite a different area: It grew 32% in the 1990s and its largest community, Columbia, has been called a planned town, though it differs from most other Baltimore suburbs by attracting a culturally liberal population. In Howard County, 32% of families earned more than $100,000 and 4% of children under five were in poverty status; in Baltimore City, only 6% earned more than $100,000 and 32% of children were poor. But a change in partisan control is not likely. George W. Bush's vote share grew from 14% to only 25%. Redistricting reduced the black percentage of the district from 75% to 59%; essentially the Democratic redistricters decided to reduce the number of blacks and substitute the Baltimore suburbanites least inclined to resent an inner city voting record. Baltimore still anchors the district: Just under half the district's vote is cast in city precincts, largely north of Pratt Street, in places like Druid Heights, Charles Village (home to Johns Hopkins University), Harlem Park and poverty-stricken Sandtown-Winchester.

The congressman from the 7th District is Elijah Cummings, who won a 1996 special election after Kweisi Mfume resigned to become president of the NAACP. Cummings grew up in Baltimore, graduated from Howard University and the University of Maryland law school, practiced law in Baltimore, and in 1982, at 31, was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates. Two years later he was chairman of the Legislative Caucus, the youngest in its history, and he became known as a consensus builder. When Mfume quit, Cummings's main competition came from the Reverend Frank Reid III, stepbrother of Mayor Kurt Schmoke, who raised $255,000. Cummings had support from community development organizations and from businessmen and lobbyists. He raised $450,000, and won 37% of the vote to 24% for Reid. He has not been seriously challenged in a primary or general since then.

Cummings still lives in west Baltimore, where he has witnessed more than his share of personal struggles, with both crime and personal finances. "When you begin slipping financially, it can become like going down a mountain of ice," he told the Baltimore Sun. Cummings explained that he spent so much time helping other people that he failed to spend enough time on his own life. Those urban realities have made him a crusader against drug abuse and a death-penalty foe; he favors strict gun control. His voting record is very liberal; he was the only Marylander to oppose the 1996 Welfare Reform Act.

In his committee work, he has been ranking Democrat on the Government Reform Criminal Justice subcommittee, where he also tends to the interests of his many federal employees. The enactment of a bill he introduced has made 20 million federal employees eligible to enroll in a long-term health insurance program, including care at home or in a nursing facility. With his seat on Transportation and Infrastructure, he responded to the summer 2001 derailment in the Howard Street Tunnel of a train carrying hazardous materials by calling for review by the General Accounting Office of the transportation of hazardous materials throughout the nation's urban areas. He has explored getting other committee assignments. For the 108th Congress, he defeated Bobby Rush to become chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Redistricting reduced Cummings's winning percentage to 74%. He carried Howard County by only 50%-49%, but carried Baltimore County 71%-29% and Baltimore city 94%-6%.

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DC Office
1632 LHOB 20515, 202-225-4741; Fax: 202-225-3178; Web site: www.house.gov/cummings

State Offices
Baltimore, 410-685-9199.

Committees

• Government Reform (7th of 19 D): Criminal Justice, Drug Policy & Human Resources (RMM); Wellness & Human Rights.
• Transportation & Infrastructure (14th of 34 D): Highways, Transit & Pipelines; Railroads.

Group Ratings (More Info)
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2002	95	87	100	75	63	38	20	45	0	0	0
2001	95	--	100	100	--	--	8	27	4	--	--

National Journal Ratings (More Info)
	2001 LIB	--	2001 CONS		2002 LIB	--	2002 CONS
Economic	94%	--	6%		77%	--	20%
Social	83%	--	11%		67%	--	29%
Foreign	86%	--	12%		84%	--	14%
For National Journal's complete 2002 Vote Ratings, as well as previous ratings dating back to 1995, please click here.

Key Votes Of The 107th Congress (More Info)
1. Approve Bush Tax Cuts N 2. Limit Patients' Bill of Rights N 3. Campaign Finance Reform Y 4. Ban ANWR Development Y 5. Faith-Based Charities N 6. Bar Gays in the Boy Scouts N		7. Ban Partial-Birth Abortion N  8. Arm Commercial Pilots Y  9. Trade Promotion Authority N 10. Bar Funds for Intl. Court N 11. Authorize Force in Iraq N 12. Deny Home. Sec. Dept. Union N

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Elijah Cummings (D)	137,047	74%	$466,160
	Joseph Ward (R)	49,172	26%
2002 primary	Elijah Cummings (D)	67,938	89%
	Robert Kaufman (D)	4,905	6%
	Other	3,210	4%
2000 general	Elijah Cummings (D)	134,066	87%	$444,442
	Kenneth Kondner (R)	19,773	13%
Prior winning percentages: 1998 (86%); 1996 (83%); 1996 (81%)

2000 presidential
	Gore (D)	166,410	73%
	Bush (R)	57,262	25%
	Other	5,766	3%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Seventh District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: D +24
• District Size: 296 square miles
• Population in 2000: 662,060; 94.9% urban; 5.1% rural
• Median Household Income: $38,885; 17.6% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 16.2% blue collar; 66.7% white collar; 17.1% gray collar; 12.0% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 34.2% White, 58.8% Black, 3.5% Asian, 0.2% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.3% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 1.7% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 7.9% German, 6.0% Irish, 4.6% English
• Click here for statewide demographic data.