
Patricia Nell Scott Schroeder (30 July 1940 – 13 March 2023) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-CO 1) from 3 January 1973 to 3 January 1997, succeeding Mike McKevitt and preceding Diana DeGette.
Biography[]
Patricia Nell Scott Schroeder was born in Portland, Oregon in 1940, and she was raised in Des Moines, Iowa. She worked for the National Labor Relations Board from 1964 to 1966, as a legal counsel for Planned Parenthood, and as a teacher in the Denver, Colorado public schools before being motivated to run for the US House of Representatives due to her opposition to the Vietnam War and a jocular challenge from one of her husband's acquaintances. She became the first female representative elected from her state, styling herself a "fiscally conservative liberal" and becoming known as a political maverick. She tearfully announced that she would not run for President in 1988 in a press conference derided by both misogynistic conservatives and upset feminists, and she received hate mail from fellow women for several years. She wen on to serve as President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers from 1997 to 2008, after which she relocated to Celebration, Florida, where she died of a stroke in 2023.