Elijah E Cummings

OPINION — When Rep. John Lewis  announced Sunday night that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, you could almost hear the country cry. Democrats and Republicans, Hollywood actors and people who had simply met the congressman in an airport, all went to Twitter to ask the 17-term Georgia Democrat to fight one more time.

“You are loved. You are respected. You are magnificent,” Ava DuVernay wrote. “Praying for you, my friend,” former president Barack Obama tweeted. “The Late Show” host Steven Colbert called Lewis “a leader, a teacher, an example for us all,” while Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Lewis’ longtime friend who counts Lewis as a hero as he mounts his own fight against Parkinson’s disease, wrote, “They don’t make them stronger or braver.”

We asked each of our three photojournalists to select their favorite photographs from 2019. Below is their unique view of political news events in Washington, as well as daily life on and around Capitol Hill.

Homeland Security officials continue to step back from their published plan to require use of facial recognition technology on American citizens at U.S. airports when they arrive from or depart to international destinations.

The Trump administration’s proposed mandatory use of the technology was included in the so-called unified agenda, published in late November, which sets out the regulatory changes agencies intend to pursue in coming months. The proposal sought to expand mandatory facial recognition at U.S. airports “to provide that all travelers, including U.S. citizens, may be required to be photographed upon entry and/or departure.”

Newly elected House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney promised on Wednesday to do her best to “follow the honorable example” of former Chairman Elijah E. Cummings, who rolled out a rigorous oversight agenda of the Trump administration this year before his death last month.

“I am deeply humbled and grateful to my colleagues for entrusting me with the chairmanship,” Maloney said in a statement.

Updated Nov. 21, 2:28 p.m. | Only a fifth of the 104 members on the three House panels that conducted the impeachment inquiry depositions attended and participated in a majority of the proceedings, according to a CQ Roll Call analysis of the available deposition transcripts.

The Intelligence Committee has released transcripts for 15 of the 17 depositions it has conducted with two other panels: Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs. 

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney won the recommendation of the influential House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on Tuesday to chair the Oversight and Reform Committee, one of the key panels investigating President Donald Trump.

The New York Democrat, the most senior member on the panel, got the nod over Virginia’s Gerald E. Connolly by 35 votes to 17 in a second round of voting.

House Democrats will confront longtime divisions over gender politics and how much weight to give seniority when they hold a secret vote Wednesday to select a permanent leader for a committee investigating possible ethical violations in President Donald Trump’s administration. 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi elevated the most senior member of the Oversight and Reform Committee, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, to acting chairwoman after Chairman Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland died last month, per caucus rules.

Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, the widow of the late Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, will receive an $174,000 payment as part of a continuing resolution that is expected to keep the government open through Dec. 20.

The personal payment in this latest spending bill continues a long-standing practice of providing a death gratuity for a departed member’s survivors. The gratuity is usually included in the next appropriations bill following a lawmakers's death and is paid to the “next of kin” in the amount of one year’s compensation — $174,000.

The House is moving forward to quickly take up a monthlong continuing resolution that would extend temporary funding levels for federal agencies. The measure will be on the floor Tuesday, according to House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md.

House Appropriations Democrats released the draft stopgap measure Monday afternoon after a morning of last-minute haggling over special additions. The measure would replace the current CR, which expires Nov. 21, with a new deadline of Dec. 20 to finish up fiscal 2020 spending bills. 

Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, the widow of the late Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, is running for the Democratic nomination to replace him in Maryland’s 7th District.

Rockeymoore Cummings resigned Monday night as chairwoman of the Maryland Democratic Party before announcing her candidacy on MSNBC ahead of a formal campaign kickoff Tuesday in Baltimore. Elijah Cummings was chairman of the Oversight and Reform Committee when he died last month.