Pat Schroeder (1940-2023)

On the wall of my library, I have photos of six of my favorite politicians hanging next to the doorway.  They include some figures (all Democrats) who are relatively well-known to the modern public, politicians who I count as personal heroes like Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer, & Claire McCaskill.  The one photo, the only one in black-and-white that attracts most people's curiosity is the only one not of a senator, and arguably of the least known of the group today, former Colorado Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, an incredible woman and early leader in the women's movement who passed away yesterday at the age of 82.

Schroeder's career started as many politicians did, with law school (she attended Harvard) and worked for a number of high-profile organizations including the National Labor Relations Board and Planned Parenthood.  However, initially it was her husband who wanted a career in politics, not Schroeder, even running for the Colorado state legislature in 1970.  After an off-hand comment about Schroeder's husband Jim "getting his wife to run," Schroeder decided to take on first-term Republican Congressman Mike McKevitt.  Despite the Nixon landslide, Schroeder won the race as a progressive who opposed the Vietnam War, and was elected to the House.  Schroeder would later say that the House was such a man's club that when she got to Congress, they at first attempted to swear in her husband before realizing that she was the one who had just won the election.

Schroeder was a noted progressive in Congress (though she preferred to think of herself as a "fiscally conservative liberal"), whose greatest contribution to Congress was as the primary backer of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which she finally got signed in 1993 by Bill Clinton after President Bush had vetoed the law twice during his his time in the White House.  Schroeder was a feminist pioneer, showing that a woman could have a high-pressure job and put motherhood front-and-center, even bringing diapers with her onto the floors of Congress.  She was also a hit with the press, known for a quick wit.  She coined the phrase "Teflon President" about Ronald Reagan and once said of Rep. Duke Cunningham (after he'd gotten into a heated debate with Bernie Sanders that ended with him using a homophobic comment), "Mr. Chairman-do we have to call the Gentleman a gentleman if he's not one?"

Schroeder's legacy includes a brief run for the presidency, one of the first female members of Congress to run for the White House (and the most notable woman to run for the White House between 1972 and 2008), that would include perhaps the biggest controversy of her career.  Announcing her withdrawal from the race, she fought back tears, and was criticized for not being tough enough given her position as a woman in politics.  Despite many, MANY male politicians openly crying (including then President Reagan) in public, decades later Schroeder would allege that she still received hate mail, mostly from women, for showing emotion as a woman in politics.  Today, though, it's easy to see that this was just another moment of Schroeder being a pioneer, one of the earliest women to strike out on her own in Congress, and become a legislative force for progressive politics.  We are all the better for her fight.