The Last Unifying Force in Congress
With Representative John Lewis’s grim cancer diagnosis, lawmakers must confront the possible loss of a singular figure within the Capitol.
Representative John Lewis had just finished delivering a heartfelt tribute to the retiring Republican Senator Johnny Isakson on the House floor last month when he looked over to his ailing fellow Georgian. “I will come over to meet you, brother,” Lewis told him as he laid his remarks down on the rostrum.
The two aging politicianseach walked gingerly toward the center aisle of the chamber and met in a bipartisan embrace. Lewis, the civil-rights icon and widely acknowledged “conscience of the Congress,” had bestowed a measure of his seemingly limitless supply of grace on an old friend, who had announced that he would soon be resigning
