The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“JAMES C. CORMAN FEDERAL BUILDING” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H451-H453 on Feb. 28, 2001.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
JAMES C. CORMAN FEDERAL BUILDING
Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 621) to designate the Federal building located at 6230 Van Nuys Boulevard in Van Nuys, California, as the ``James C. Corman Federal Building.''
The Clerk read as follows:
H.R. 621
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. DESIGNATION.
The Federal building located at 6230 Van Nuys Boulevard in Van Nuys, California, shall be known and designated as the
``James C. Corman Federal Building''.
SEC. 2. REFERENCES.
Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States to the Federal building referred to in section 1 shall be deemed to be a reference to the ``James C. Corman Federal Building''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Costello) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette).
Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 621 designates the Federal building in Van Nuys, California, as the James C. Corman Federal building. Congressman Corman was born in Galena, Kansas, and was a graduate of Belmont High School. He earned his undergraduate degree from UCLA, his juris doctor from USC, and his LLD from the University of San Fernando Valley School of Law. He was appointed to the California bar in 1949.
Congressman Corman first served his country in the United States Marine Corps during the Second World War and later as a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserves. In 1957, Congressman Corman was elected to the Los Angeles City Council. He served on the council until being elected to the 87th Congress in 1960 and was reelected to the House of Representatives for 10 succeeding terms.
He served on the Committee on the Judiciary, where he was instrumental in fighting for the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and on the Committee on Ways and Means, where he was a leading advocate for the poor and the disadvantaged working on tax and welfare reform.
Congressman Corman was also proud to serve on President Johnson's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders to investigate the causes of multi-city rioting in 1967. As many of us are aware, former Congressman Corman passed away at the age of 80 last January.
I support this bill, and I encourage my colleagues to support it as well.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 621, a bill to designate the Federal building located at 6230 Van Nuys Boulevard in Van Nuys, California, as the James C. Corman Federal building.
Congressman Jim Corman represented the 21st Congressional District in California for 20 years, from 1961 until 1981, the years which saw the Vietnam War, urban riots, Watergate, and the first manned flight to the Moon.
Jim Corman was born on October 20, 1920, in Galena, Kansas. In 1933, after his father died, he and his mother moved to the Los Angeles area.
During World War II, Congressman Corman served in the Marines. After the war, he worked his way through UCLA and USC Law School. He began his public career in 1957 when he was elected to serve on the Los Angeles City Council.
In 1961, he was elected to Congress and was named to the Committee on the Judiciary. In addition, he served on the House Committee on Ways and Means.
Congressman Corman was named by President Johnson as one of the 10 people named to the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, formerly known as the Kerner Commission. During his tenure on the commission, he was optimistic about finding the causes and developing solutions for racism in America.
In 1968, he became President Johnson's point man on welfare reform. Having been close to poverty as he was growing up, Corman displayed a particular energy and devotion to solving welfare problems.
{time} 1045
During his 20 years of service, his concern for senior citizens and the poorest members of our society became his trademark and part of his legacy. Jim Corman saw the fruition of his efforts in the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he considered the greatest accomplishment of his political career. Jim was well liked, a hard worker, a first-rate legislator. It is fitting and proper to honor Congressman James Corman with this designation.
Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the ranking member of the full committee.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I thank our ranking member for yielding me this time and compliment the gentleman from Illinois on managing his first two bills as our new ranking member of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management and our new chairman, the gentleman from Ohio, on his new and fitting chairmanship which I know he will discharge with great distinction as he has always done in all of his service in the Congress.
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. He like so many of his generation served voluntarily in World War II as a member of the United States Marine Corps. He came out battle hardened, tough, but still filled with compassion for the greatest needs in society. He constantly referred to those memories while speaking on legislation considered in this Chamber known as the Great Society programs for which he was a passionate advocate. His service on what was popularly known as the Kerner Commission, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, was along with his advocacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 surely one of the highlights of his career. He embodied civility, decency, dignity of bearing, respect for the institution, appreciation for the traditions of the House and for the civility that is necessary in floor debate. He was the very model of decorum.
But it is also fitting that at this time we take up the naming of a public building and Federal building in his memory that we do so at a time when election reform is at the forefront of everyone's agenda. Jim Corman, I think, had only one regret about public service, and that was that the election was called too early. Television reports from exit polls on the East Coast were flashed across the country to California. President Carter's own early concession caused people standing in line, waiting to vote, to turn around and leave. And Jim Corman always felt and I think studies later confirmed that those were largely votes that would have returned him to office.
As we designate this Federal building, let us also redouble our efforts at election reform to cure the ills of the past as Jim Corman worked so hard to cure the ills of racial divide and divisiveness in America, to restore dignity to the election process as he worked so hard to restore dignity to African Americans and to others who were neglected and left aside in the prosperity of our great country. I urge the adoption of this legislation.
To his devoted wife, Nancy, their two sons, Adam and Brian, I offer my profound sympathy as well as my congratulations on the designation of the James C. Corman Federal Building.
Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), the sponsor of this legislation.
Mr. BERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I thank the committee for so quickly allowing this legislation to be discharged and brought to the floor. I introduced this legislation to honor the memory of James C. Corman, our former colleague, who passed away last January. Jim dedicated a quarter of his life to this institution and he made his mark here in many ways, on issues great and small.
He was first elected to Congress in 1960, where he served on the committee on which I now serve, the Committee on the Judiciary, through 1968. I think for any young person just getting interested in government, public affairs and politics at that time, probably the hallmark piece of legislation that passed in those early 1960s was the famous Civil Rights Act of 1964. Jim as a second-term Member of this body by virtue of his deep and abiding commitment to equal justice and to civil rights and by virtue of his skill and talent as a legislator became one of the chief architects and the floor manager for title VII of that act, that portion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited discrimination based on race, creed, religion or gender in the employment practices of this country, private sector as well as public.
In fact, Jim's commitment to the work of the Committee on the Judiciary caused him to call me soon after I won election to a district which by virtue of the vagaries of reapportionment now has my district representing essentially every part of what Jim represented during those 20 years. He called me and urged me to seek membership on that committee because of the great constitutional and civil rights issues that were before the Committee on the Judiciary.
From 1968 to 1980, Jim moved from the Committee on the Judiciary to the Committee on Ways and Means, where he worked diligently on many important issues, taxes, trade, Social Security and welfare reform. It was particularly in the hard, nitty-gritty work, work with very little reward, in the area of welfare law and Social Security law that Jim developed a new second reputation for expertise and skill. Jim's abiding interest was to secure justice and a better life for the less fortunate in our society. He was certainly one of the most effective advocates this body has ever had for senior citizens and the poor.
He was always a courtly man, kind and considerate, and he left a legacy of integrity and honor and service to others rarely matched in public life today, or then. Politics was different in those days. Now you have the slick TV commercials and the specialized direct mail and so much of it is a tactician's and strategist's effort. Jim's politics was a very personal politics. He was not interested in the latest and fanciest political techniques. Perhaps that helped to create the conditions by which he finally lost that bitter election of 1980. But everywhere I have gone, and this is now 20 years since his service to the San Fernando Valley ended in this Congress, people always ask me,
``How is Jim doing?'' ``Boy, I loved Jim Corman.'' ``Jim Corman's office did this for me.'' ``Jim Corman was always there when we needed him.'' ``I remember Jim Corman cleaning, washing, hosing off the street in front of his district office every weekend.''
Jim had a special commitment on a human level and on a person-to-
person level to the constituents that he represented. One of the very valuable things for the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles that Jim did was to get the funds to build the Federal building, the first Federal building in the San Fernando Valley, and it is only fitting that this building be named after him. I have been blessed to have the opportunity to know and to learn from and to be inspired by Jim Corman. My memories of him will always be a great joy to me. I thank this body for bringing so quickly at the early part of this session this legislation to honor him to the floor.
Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Matsui), who is a cosponsor of the legislation.
Mr. MATSUI. I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Costello) for yielding me this time.
Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues before me, the gentleman from Minnesota
(Mr. Oberstar) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), have said, we have all been inspired by Jim Corman. I was a freshman Member in 1979, when Jim actually was serving his last term in office and he and his wife Nancy opened their hearts up to the freshman Members and hosted us at their home and made sure that we were comfortable and really understood this town. I have to say that my relationship with him, my wife Doris' relationship with Nancy, was one of the finest that we have had in our years in Washington, D.C. Jim had two children from his first marriage, Mary Anne and Chuck Corman, had two sons with his wife Nancy, Adam and Brian, who are now, one is in college and the other one is, I believe, in high school.
From a professional level, I just want to tell one anecdote about Jim Corman, and I guess it says a lot about him as a person and as a human being. In 1980, when he was up for reelection, he knew he was going to have a very, very difficult race because the antibusing leader in the San Fernando Valley which he represented decided to run against him for Congress in the Republican Party. Jim had always been an advocate of allowing busing to occur. There was a constitutional amendment on the floor of the House, I believe it was in the spring of 1980, some months before the general election. Many of us new Members, who perhaps were a little more attuned to our congressional districts, went to Jim and said, ``Jim, vote in favor of this constitutional amendment. You can take this. This is not a big deal. Why should you stick your neck out?''
Jim thought about it for a minute while he was looking at the three or four of us that were talking to him on the floor of the House, and he said, ``I feel very strongly that everyone should have equal opportunities in school.'' You may agree or disagree with the concept of busing that was going on in the sixties, seventies and eighties. Jim Corman happened to believe that busing was a tool to use in order to make sure that we had diversity obviously in our communities and in our Nation.
He said that he could not work against his beliefs for political purposes, and he took that hard vote and a press conference was held against him. He went out later and talked to the press and defended his position in a way that was very, very strong, very, very sensitive. I would say that many Members at that time perhaps would have capitulated and basically have said, yeah, why not just take a pass on this one here.
Jim Corman lost that election, partly because President Carter had announced the election was over and conceded defeat very early, it was 5 o'clock in California, but also because he was a principled individual. Many of us over the years, the next 20 years of his life, talked to him about that vote and his legacy. He said, ``You know, that was the hardest vote but it was the finest vote I ever had in this institution.'' I have to say that if all of us would act as Jim Corman acts, this country and this institution would be a better place.
{time} 1100
Let me just conclude by making one other observation, Mr. Speaker. From a personal level, Corman was really one of the finest gentlemen that I have ever had the opportunity to meet. When he passed away and his obituary appeared in the Los Angeles Times, before I had a chance to call my son Brian, my son called me when he saw the obituary and he said, I saw that Mr. Corman passed away. Brian was 6 or 7 years old when Jim was still a Member of the House. And he said, Dad, I cannot tell you how much Mr. Corman means to me or meant to me.
Jim loved children. Jim would spend hours and hours with children of the Members of Congress, and I have to say that Jim Corman's legacy will be this post office but his legacy also will be the many, many Americans who will be thinking about him as long as they live.
I cannot think of a greater tribute than to name a post office after Jim Corman and to pay tribute to him on the floor of this institution.
Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I wish today to support H.R. 621, designating the James C. Corman Federal Building.
Jim Corman was a true statesman who served his constituents in California, and indeed, the people of the United States, with great distinction. Jim cared passionately for the poor and worked to see that their interests were heard in Washington. He was one of the great leaders in the Congress seeking health insurance for all and he worked hard to enact a decent, humane social policy for the disadvantaged.
Jim rejected the voices in Congress who seek to help those already blessed with wealth while neglecting those who cannot put food on their tables. ``I don't think there is anything uplifting about hunger,'' he once said. Jim was a tireless advocate for the uninsured and he passed on his sense of passion to his colleagues, including me. When I was first assigned to the House Ways and Means Committee, Jim taught me
``how things were done.'' I am grateful to have served with Jim Corman and I know his constituents were grateful for his service.
Naming this Federal building after Jim Corman is a proper tribute to a man who dedicated his life to public service. Jim will be best remembered, however, for his tireless work on behalf of those who are less fortunate.
Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Miller of Florida). The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) that the House suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 621.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of those present have voted in the affirmative.
Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be postponed.
____________________
