The Maverick: Patricia Schroeder (Part Two)

This summer, I set out to see if it was too late to mount a campaign. Not a symbolic campaign, but a winning campaign, for the presidency of the United States. I said that I could not stand aside from a campaign that would decide my nation’s future and my children’s future; that it was important to get out and have a voice. Political pundits around the country were totally horrified by my plainspeaking when I walked out and said ‘no dough, no go.’ They couldn’t believe anyone could be that straight speaking, but that's what we are in Colorado. I said I wanted America to see me as a candidate for President who was a woman, rather than a woman’s candidate and label me and pigeon hole me because I felt that my qualifications were every bit as good and had my name been Patrick, that’s how they would have treated it. Patricia Schroeder, September 28, 1987. 

Welcome to Civics and Coffee. My name is Alycia and I am a self-professed history nerd. Each week, I am going to chat about a topic on U.S history and give you both the highlights and occasionally break down some of the complexities in history; and share stories you may not remember learning in high school. All in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of coffee. 

INTRO MUSIC

Hey everyone, welcome back. 

After almost 15 years in the House of Representatives, Pat Schroeder addressed supporters in September of 1987 to announce that after exploring the possibility of a campaign, she ultimately decided against running for the presidency. Her speech, a portion of which I read at the beginning of this episode, was derided by feminists who criticized Schroeder’s display of emotion as fuel to those who believed women were too emotional for the White House. Despite these criticisms, Schroeder would remain in the house another decade, helping fellow women run for and secure election victories. But I am getting a little ahead of myself. 

If you caught last week’s episode then you know that I am in the middle of covering the life and legacy of former Representative Patricia Schroeder. I ended last episode with Schroeder beating out the naysayers in securing an elective upset as she won the race to become the representative of Colorado’s first district. As I hinted toward the end of that episode, Schroeder’s elevation to Congress came with its own unique barriers as her male colleagues - and much of the news media at the time - could not quite grapple with having a young mother serving in Congress. 

So this week I am wrapping up my coverage of Patricia Schroeder. How long did she serve in Congress? What prompted her to try for the presidency? And what did she accomplish while serving in the house? 

Grab your cup of coffee, peeps. Let’s do this. 

Elected at just 32 years old with two small children, Pat Schroeder was a bit of an outlier. Most congressional representatives were men. In fact, out of the 535 members of Congress, just sixteen of them were women - and were exclusive to the House of Representatives as no women were seated in the Senate. The fact that she was a woman - a married woman with two small children to raise, no less - invited questions from the media as to whether she would be doing her children a disservice by serving in Congress. How, they asked, could she be a fulltime, supportive mother if she was busy being a representative? 

Schroeder made it a point to remind folks that Congress was filled with representatives who were also parents and that shockingly enough, none of them were asked about how they would balance both being a parent and a federal representative, saying later quote: “one of the problems with being a working mother, whether you’re a congresswoman or a stenographer or whatever, is that everybody feels perfectly free to come and tell you what they think: ‘i think what you’re doing to your children is terrible.’ ‘I think you should be home.’ They don’t do that to men,” end quote. 

Being a female representative was so far outside the norm that when she went to her swearing in ceremony, people looked to her husband Jim, to take the oath. And while she maintained an exterior calm and confidence, inside Schroeder was nervous. Letting a little imposter syndrome take over, Schroeder wondered why she was there and whether she had what it took to be a strong advocate for her constituents back home in Colorado. Trusting that her voters made the right choice, Schroeder quieted her internal doubts and set her sights on gaining a seat on one of the most coveted committees in the house: the Armed Services Committee. 

Considered conservative in nature and filled with men, the Armed Services Committee controlled more than ⅓ of federal discretionary spending in 1973. Landing a seat on this committee would be a win for any freshmen congressperson, let alone a woman. In seeking the assignment, Schroeder hoped to work from the inside to free up some funding for other social welfare programs she supported. Committee assignments are very important to congressional careers as it is on committees that representatives can exert some influence on bills that get presented or projects getting funding. Competition can be fierce for seats on some of the higher profile committees, such as Armed Services. Getting on to the Armed Services Committee was also pivotal during this time as the support for the war in Vietnam remained a divisive issue. It was rightly considered the most powerful committee available and Schroeder, who ran as an anti-Vietnam war candidate, knew she needed to gain access to the committee in order to be an effective agent for change. Schroeder benefitted from the timing of her election. In 1973, there was a growing demand for reform and as noted by Schroeder’s biographer quote, “Democratic leaders were under increasing pressure to give female and African American lawmakers seats on the House’s more powerful committees from which they had traditionally been shut out,” end quote. 

Schroeder also had Wilbur Mills as a behind the scenes ally. The man who helped Lyndon Johnson get Medicaid through Congress in the 1960s, Mills was considered the 2nd most powerful man in Washington. Thus, when Schroeder vied for the Armed Services Committee, she got it. But that was the easy part. Senior congressman, and committee chair F. Edward Hebert (a-bear) was not overly enthused with the idea of having a woman on the committee. He was also less than happy about the idea of another newcomer to the committee, African American Ron Dellums from California. In referring to Schroeder and Dellums, Hebert (a bear) said that a woman and a Black man were only worth quote “half of the rest of my members,” end quote. While he could not preclude them from being on the committee, he could make their time uncomfortable and on the first day of the committee, Schroeder and Dellums arrived to find that only a single chair awaited them. None of their colleagues spoke up and no one offered to fix the situation and grab an additional chair. Thus, Schroeder and Dellums sat down - refusing to create a scene - and corrected the situation themselves by bringing in an additional chair. 

Schroeder understood that the chairman of the committee could make things difficult and thus, she attempted to mend fences with the Congressman from Louisiana. In their meeting, Hebert (a bear) apparently said that as far as the committee was concerned, he was God and that Schroeder would be okay if could remember that. He also argued that as a matter of policy women should not be allowed to serve on the Armed Services Committee because they had not experience serving in the military. These statements did not go over well with the freshman congresswoman who took the time to research her male colleagues to determine just how many had service backgrounds. In her research Schroeder found that a majority of those sitting on the committee had not served, undercutting the chairman’s argument. Keenly aware of how to use the media to her advantage, Schroeder made sure to make a point about her colleagues lack of experience in the military during committee hearings - a stunt that did not win her any friends. Schroeder also defended her position on the committee saying quote, “When men talk about defense, they always claim to be protecting women and children, but they never ask they women and children what they think,” end quote. 

To say Schroeder butted heads with her fellow committee members would be an understatement. In fact, things got so contentious that Chairman Hebert (a bear) even refused to authorize Schroeder’s travel to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) in Geneva. Schroeder was only able to travel thanks to intervention by the State Department, but even then she was not permitted any fund for travel and had to pay for the trip out of her pocket instead of traveling with her colleagues via military plane. Fed up with what she felt was inappropriate and unprofessional treatment, Schroeder went public by writing an article for Redbook magazine. She called out the committee chair and the blatant sexism she faced on Armed Services. The article may have made her concerns public and led to the media painting her with the maverick moniker, but it also alienated her from her colleagues. When she boarded a military plane for a congressional trip to the middle east, she was shocked to see a copy of the magazine on every seat on the plane.  

Despite a rocky beginning, Schroeder stayed on Armed Services throughout her career and used her influence to alter the defense budget to make it more quote-unquote reasonable. She spent considerable time trying to improve the lives and experiences of military families, including pushing for more funding to go toward the moving allowances, establishing schools on military bases, and introducing the Military Family Act in 1985 which led to the establishment of the Office of Family Policy within the Department of Defense. The bill also required that the Defense Department provide childcare facilities on military installations and helped shepherd in a military dental benefit. Schroeder also successfully convinced the committee to recommend allowing women to fly combat missions and, in 1991, pushed for military reforms after two significant sexual harassment scandals involving the Army and the Navy. Schroeder also focused on readiness. As her biographer Joan Lowy observed, quote: “She would press the Pentagon on whether troops were being trained enough, whether they got enough basic pay, and whether they got enough combat or hazardous duty pay when the times demanded it,” end quote. 

Aside from her role in the Armed Services Committee, Schroeder is perhaps best known for her championing issues previously classified as women and family focused. This was not something Schroeder intended to do upon her election, but later said she chose to take up those causes because quote “no one else did it,” end quote. One of the highlights of her career was getting the Family Medical Leave Act, or FMLA, passed in 1993. A legislative victory ten years in the making, FMLA granted 12 weeks of unpaid leave to employees who needed to care for a newborn, or a sick child or parent. Schroeder also used her time in Congress to push for health researchers to study women’s health conditions, including requiring that research include both women and men. She was a voiceful supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion rights, and pushed for gender equality in the workplace. 

Schroeder played a pivotal role in the passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978. The federal law amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, inserting a subsection that read in part, quote: “women affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions shall be treated the same for all employment-related purposes, including receipt of benefits under fringe benefit programs, as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work,” end quote.  

Schroeder also worked to ensure that she left the proverbial door behind her open for the next generation of women. In 1977, she became a founding member of the Congressional Women’s Caucus, which she co-chaired for 10 years. She also worked hard to get other women elected to Congress, including in 1992 when she traveled to Georgia to help future Representative Cynthia McKinney secure victory. McKinney, an admirer of Schroeder, had written a letter to Schroeder asking for advice when she felt her own campaign for the house wasn’t being treated as seriously as it should. Not only did Schroeder travel to Georgia and make campaign stops for McKinney, she also made a personal donation to the campaign. 

Schroeder was an effective communicator and someone who understood how to use the media to advance a narrative. She spent the 1980s speaking up against President Ronald Reagan’s policies, evening coining the term the Teflon President in describing Reagan’s ability to withstand any attempts to criticize the president. Schroeder fully embraced her role as a member of the opposition party when she recommended that the budget of the executive office of the president be frozen after the president recommended reducing funding for student aid and subsidized housing, social programs Schroeder believed in. Schroeder also held Reagan to account for exaggerating the number of women appointed to high ranking positions within his administration, citing statistical data to back up her claims. Her jabs did not always land well and were sometimes used by her critics as evidence that Schroeder was a lightweight and someone who should not be taken seriously.

In 1987 as the country prepared for another presidential election, Schroeder went to work trying to elect her choice, Colorado Senator Gary Hart, serving as his campaign chair. Hart’s candidacy did not last once evidence of an extramarital affair became public and Hart suspended his campaign in May 1987. Just a few weeks later, Schroeder made a somewhat surprising announcement: she was thinking of launching a bid for the White House. The first woman to vie for a major party’s nomination since Shirley Chisholm a decade earlier, Schroeder’s announcement made news - and this time, the headlines remembered her name. However, entering late and unable to raise the money necessary to launch an effective national campaign, Schroeder announced in September that she would not seek the nomination. In giving her remarks, Schroeder became emotional - a reaction that as I mentioned in the beginning of this episode - earned her fierce criticism by feminists. 

Refusing to bow to the noise, Schroeder continued her work in the house for another ten years before retiring in 1997. She kept herself busy - serving on the Judiciary Committee and overseeing a Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families. Schroeder also continued to wear the opposition crown proudly, going toe to toe with Republican Congressman Newt Gingrich in the mid-nineties. Eventually though the partisan divide got too much for Schroeder to handle and she left office after serving 12 terms in office. Upon her retirement, Schroeder lamented that the gender gap in Congress was dismaying where women remained a minority. As of this recording in 2025, women still only represent 28% of Congress, despite being just over 50% of the U.S. population. 

Former Representative Schroeder spent her retirement working as the president and chief executive of the Association of American Publishers before finally retiring in 2008. She passed away at the age of 82 on March 13, 2023.  

Patricia Schroeder never became an insider. She served without ever becoming the chairperson of a committee or holding a position of power within the Democratic party. Despite being someone who was on the outside, Schroeder was an effective politician. Securing pregnancy protections, family leave, and working to increase protections for whistleblowers, Schroeder demonstrated not only that women could handle being in Congress while also raising a family, but that they could be incredibly impactful and effective as well.  

I will end this episode with a quote that I think is very representative of who Schroeder was and her ability to disarm folks with her famous wit. When looking back on her career, Schroeder expressed gratitude for being born when she was, telling the interviewer quote, “If I’d been born in a prior generation, I would probably either be dead or in a mental institution.”

Thanks, peeps. I will see you next week.

Thanks for tuning and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Civics & Coffee. If you want to hear more small snippets from american history, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening and I look forward to our next cup of coffee together. 

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