James Oberstar: “It is really with a full heart that I come to the floor with this legislation to name the Federal building for Jim…”

“It is really with a full heart that I come to the floor with this legislation to name the Federal building for Jim Corman. Congressman Corman was my friend and in a way a mentor on decency and civility and dignity from the time I began my service in the House as a member of the staff of my predecessor, John Blatnik, with whom Jim Corman was very close. And through work on the Democratic Study Group, through work on civil rights, especially the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which largely was shaped in the office of John Blatnik, who with the then Kennedy administration staffers and Justice Department, Jim Corman was a solid, unyielding, unbending voice for the strongest possible language and the most comprehensive framing of that legislation to address the wrongs of our society. Jim Corman was born in poverty, raised without a father, whom he lost while Jim was still very young, his father also young, and resolved to overcome poverty and distress.”