Colorado can be proud of sending Democrat Patricia
Schroeder to the House of Representatives in 1972. There, she
battled the Old Boy network with wit and, more important, grit. Two
years ago she retired, and now she’s published a book, 24 Years of
House Work … and the Place is Still a Mess: My Life in Politics.
As always, she doesn’t mince words. Here’s Schroeder’s account of
sharing one chair – literally – with California Democrat Ron
Dellums while serving on the House Armed Services Committee.
Chairman F. Edward Hébert of Louisiana didn’t like uppity
newcomers, especially a woman and a black man, and he wouldn’t
sanction the extra chair.
Schroeder recalls:
“Shortly after I was appointed, I tried to come to some sort of
truce with Hébert. I paid a call on him at his office. He was
the only congressman with a patio entrance and a seven-room suite
including an “adultery” room with nude paintings, a bar, a couch
and no windows.” Schroeder says there were hundreds of pictures of
Hébert in his office. “He was an ego run amok. He had long ago
lost all sense of the Armed Services Committee as a democratically
run body. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” he told me.
“And here, I am the Lord.” “
Schroeder says that
as a naive first-termer she thought the Constitution’s system of
checks and balances worked. When she found it didn’t, she
understood she had nothing to gain by acting demure. She did her
homework, and challenged the country’s military-industrial complex.
Though she may have failed at running for the U.S. presidency,
Schroeder succeeded admirably as a fighter for women and families,
as well as for the democratic process.
*Betsy
Marston
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Pat Schroeder: Tougher than Teflon.
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