[ "Pat Schroeder blazed the trail. Every woman in this house is
walking in her footsteps," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., who took over
from Schroeder as Democratic chair of the bipartisan congressional
caucus on womens issues.]
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FORMER REP. PAT SCHROEDER, A PIONEER FOR WOMEN’S RIGHTS, DIES AT 82
 
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The Associated Press
March 14, 2023
NPR
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_ "Pat Schroeder blazed the trail. Every woman in this house is
walking in her footsteps," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., who took over
from Schroeder as Democratic chair of the bipartisan congressional
caucus on women's issues. _

Pat Schroeder speaks to a reporter during an interview at the Los
Angeles Convention Center on April 30, 1999, (Photo: Nick Ut/AP)

 

Former U.S. Rep. Pat Schroeder, a pioneer for women's and family
rights in Congress, died Monday night. She was 82.

Schroeder's former press secretary, Andrea Camp, said Schroeder
suffered a stroke recently and died at a hospital in Celebration,
Florida, the city where she had been residing in recent years.

Schroeder took on the powerful elite with her rapier wit and antics
for 24 years, shaking up stodgy government institutions by forcing
them to acknowledge that women had a role in government.  Her
unorthodox methods cost her important committee posts, but Schroeder
said she wasn't willing to join what she called "the good old boys'
club" just to score political points. Unafraid of embarrassing her
congressional colleagues in public, she became an icon for the
feminist movement.

Schroeder was elected to Congress in Colorado in 1972 and became one
of its most influential Democrats as she won easy reelection 11 times
from her safe district in Denver. Despite her seniority, she was never
appointed to head a committee.

Schroeder helped forge several Democratic majorities before deciding
in 1997 it was time to leave. Her parting shot in 1998 was a book
titled "24 Years of Housework ... and the Place is Still a Mess. My
Life in Politics,″ which chronicled her frustration with male
domination and the slow pace of change in federal institutions.

In 1987, Schroeder tested the waters for the presidency, mounting a
fundraising drive after fellow Coloradan Gary Hart pulled out of the
race. She announced three months later that she would not run and said
her "tears signify compassion, not weakness." Her heart was not in it,
she said, and she thought fundraising was demeaning.

She was the first woman on the House Armed Services Committee but was
forced to share a chair with U.S. Rep. Ron Dellums, D-Calif., the
first African American, when committee chairman F. Edward Hebert,
D-La., organized the panel. Schroeder said Hebert thought the
committee was no place for a woman or an African American and they
were each worth only half a seat.

Congresswomen Shirley Chisholm, D-N.Y., left, and Pat Schroeder,
D-Colo., are pictured at a news conference in Washington on July 31,
1979.  John Duricka/AP

 

Republicans were livid after Schroeder and others filed an ethics
complaint over House Speaker Newt Gingrich's televised college lecture
series, charging that free cable time he received amounted to an
illegal gift under House rules. Gingrich became the first speaker
reprimanded by Congress. Gingrich said later he regretted not taking
Schroeder and her colleagues more seriously.

Earlier, she had blasted Gingrich for suggesting women shouldn't serve
in combat because they could get infections from being in a ditch for
30 days. According to her official House biography, she once told
Pentagon officials that if they were women, they would always be
pregnant because they never said "no."

Asked by one congressman how she could be a mother of two small
children and a member of Congress at the same time, she replied, "I
have a brain and a uterus, and I use both.″

It was Schroeder who branded President Ronald Reagan the "Teflon"
president for his ability to avoid blame for major policy decisions,
and the name stuck.

One of Schroeder's biggest victories was the signing of a family-leave
bill in 1993, providing job protection for care of a newborn, a sick
child or a parent.

"Pat Schroeder blazed the trail. Every woman in this house is walking
in her footsteps," said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., who took over from
Schroeder as Democratic chair of the bipartisan congressional caucus
on women's issues.

Schroeder said legislators spent too much attention on contributors
and special interests. When House Republicans gathered on the U.S.
Capitol steps to celebrate their first 100 days in power in 1994, she
and several aides clambered to the building's dome and hung a 15-foot
red banner reading, "Sold."

A pilot, Schroeder earned her way through Harvard Law School with her
own flying service. Schroeder became a professor at Princeton
University after leaving Congress, but said politics was in her blood
and she would continue working for candidates she supported.

For a while, she taught a graduate-level course titled "The Politics
of Poverty." She also headed the Association of American Publishers.

Schroeder continued working in politics after moving to Florida, going
door to door, speaking to groups and mentoring candidates. She was
politically active for issues and candidates across the country and
campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Among other activities she
served on the board of the Marguerite Casey Foundation.

Schroeder was born in Portland, Oregon, on July 30, 1940. She was a
pilot who paid for college tuition with her own flying service. She
graduated from the University of Minnesota before earning her law
degree in 1964. From 1964 to 1966, she was a field attorney for the
National Labor Relations Board.

She is survived by her husband, James W. Schroeder, whom she married
in 1962. Also surviving are their two children, Scott and Jamie, and
her brother, Mike Scott, as well as four grandchildren.

* Feminism
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* family leave
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* Congress
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* sexism
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* Pentagon Budget
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