Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, a brief reminiscence

Pat Schroeder’s election in 1972 brought a brilliant and very liberal woman to the House of Representatives. Everyone soon learned that Pat never shrank from using her sharp wit, incisive intellect, and sense of humor to skewer stupidity, misogyny, and injustice — and to get things done.

I was one of the four women elected at the same time as Pat — two others joined us several months later. But even the addition of the six newcomers brought the number of women in the House to just 16, a tiny percentage of the total House membership of four 435.

Although we came from opposite sides of the country, Pat and I found much common ground. We were both Harvard Law graduates (although she was a year ahead of me), strong opponents of the Vietnam War and elected because the Democratic Party’s powers-that-be never thought either of us, as women, could, or possibly even should, win. But despite the odds, both of us did.   

At that time, women were generally treated as second-class citizens, a fact that the Congresswomen fought against mightily. The House itself was part of the problem. Not only did it fail to welcome us with open arms, but it actively discriminated. One stark example: The House gym was open only to Congressmen, while we women were barred. Another: As a woman, Pat was given only a half a seat on the Armed Services Committee that she shared with a Black man whom the committee chair also viewed as less than a full person. But none of these obstacles intimidated Pat or the rest of us.

When we served together, Pat took on the task of ending the exclusion of women from the U.S. military academies. She also authored vital legislation to prevent the firing or discrimination against pregnant women in the workplace because of their pregnancy. Pat wasn’t alone. Shirley Chisholm (D-N.Y.) finally won Social Security coverage for domestic workers, a decades-long struggle. Lindy Boggs (D-La.) and Barbara Mikulski (d-Md.) got the first legislation adopted to combat domestic violence. Peggy Heckler (R-Mass.) wrote a law barring discrimination against women in banking and credit. I authored a law that stopped the humiliation of rape victims when they testified in federal trials.     

In 1977, to maximize our clout, the Congresswomen decided to band together and form the Congresswomen’s Caucus, later known as the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues. It was bipartisan, with one Democratic and one Republican woman serving as co-chairs. I was very glad that Pat succeeded me as the Democratic co-chair, a position she held for many years. This was a testament to her colleagues’ enormous respect for her wise and effective leadership. Huge progress was made for women’s rights under her guidance. The Caucus survives today, almost 50 years after its creation, because of the solid foundation that Pat constructed.  

Fun and fearless — that was Pat.

I remember a Congressional trip the Congresswomen took to persuade the Cambodian government to allow food to be delivered to tens of thousands of starving refugees massed on the Thai-Cambodian border. State Department officials, who were responsible for shepherding us around, refused to cross the border with us into Cambodia because the U.S. did not recognize the Cambodian government. Although we had no U.S. government protection, Pat wasn’t deterred; she was one of the first to walk across the border, eager to meet with the refugees who desperately wanted to share their plight with us. (And we succeeded in our mission.)

In 1972, just before Pat and I came to Congress, the House and Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment. A target of right-wing attacks, it unfortunately failed to get ratified by 38 states before the ratification deadline. It was a very sore point for me, as a woman and a lawyer, that the Constitution did not explicitly recognize equal rights for women, more than half of America’s population. It was for Pat, too.

Our last conversation, which took place only a couple of years ago, involved the ERA. I had called to ask Pat if she would endorse a new strategy to add the ERA to the Constitution. She immediately agreed. We had a nice conversation, but I was especially moved by her continuing fierce support for the ERA. Despite the passage of many years — going back at least to 1977 when all the Congresswomen worked to get the ERA’s ratification deadline extended so that the ERA could finally be ratified, she had never given up.

It is an example that should continue to inspire all of us today.

Elizabeth Holtzman served in Congress for four terms as a Democratic representative from New York. She was a member of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate investigation involving Richard Nixon. She is a Harvard Law graduate and the author of “The Case for Impeaching Trump.”