Rep. Oberstar proud of precedents

As chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) is understandably proud of the fact that he has set two precedents.

First, by virtue of having served as an aide to the late Rep. John Blatnik (D-Minn.), who later served as chairman of the then-House Public Works Committee, Oberstar is the first member of Congress to serve as chairman of a committee on which he was once staff director.

{mosads}And second, as former Chairman Robert Roe (D-N.J.) pointed out Wednesday night at the unveiling of Oberstar’s official portrait in the Rayburn House Office Building committee room, it is the only bilingual committee in Congress, thanks to Oberstar’s fluency in French.

Oberstar could add a third distinction next year. Vice Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), who emceed the event, said he will urge the next president to name Oberstar secretary of Transportation, which would make him the second chairman of the panel to head that department. (The first was former Rep. Norman Mineta, D-Calif.)

Not coincidentally, it would also make Rahall chairman, he half-jokingly informed some 100 guests, including Mineta, Roe and two other former chairmen, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) and former Rep. Bud Shuster (R-Pa.), as well as ranking member John Mica (R-Fla.) and several dozen other members.

Rahall called the 73-year-old Oberstar, who became chairman of the pork-barrel panel last year, “the true builder of America,” and declared, “This committee has done more for this nation than any other committee.”

Oberstar, who joined Blatnik’s staff in 1963 and was staff director when he took over the seat after Blatnik retired in 1974, paid tribute to his wife, Jean, and daughter, Anne Prager, to his colleagues and aides, and to Minnesota artist Leslie Bowman, who painted his portrait over a period of eight months.

In an oblique reference to Roe’s question about where Oberstar’s portrait would hang in relation to those of Roe, Mineta, Shuster, Young and Blatnik, Oberstar said, “I don’t worry about where my portrait goes, but maybe it’ll be next to Blatnik, and in the quiet of the evening, we’ll have a quiet conversation” about what Roe described as “building bridges to everywhere.”