In 1972, Colorado was a very conservative state that today we would call a “red” state. But in ’72, voters elected their first ever female member of Congress, the young Democrat Pat Schroeder.
She won re-election in each of the next 11 elections, eventually serving 24 years in the US House of Representatives, becoming one of its most influential members.
She even considered joining the 1988 race for president, but ultimately decided against it. And the way she exited the race became a point of controversy in and of itself.
I met her in 1998 when she wrote a memoir which she called 24 Years of Housework and the Place is Still a Mess.
So here now, from 1998, Pat Schroeder.
Pat Schroeder died this past March, she was 82.
You may also like these episodes:
Geraldine FerraroJane Byrne