U.S. Representative
In 1972, Schroeder won election for Congress in Colorado's first district, based in Denver, over freshman Republican incumbent James McKevitt. At age 31, Schroeder is the second-youngest woman ever elected to that body. McKevitt, previously the Denver district attorney, had been the first Republican to represent the district, regarded as the most Democratic in the Rockies, since Dean M. Gillespie in 1947. Schroeder won by just over 8,000 votes, but was re-elected eleven more times without a contest nearly as close, and served 24 years as a U.S. Representative.
Interestingly enough, she found out years later that during that very first congressional campaign the FBI had had her and her staff under surveillance. The bureau had paid a man named Timothy Redfern to break into her home, and she also noticed that someone had been rifling through her car's glovebox. The FBI amassed a 60 page file on her (which she obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request). Schroeder said she that as a taxpayer that she was enraged to learn this, and wondered why the FBI couldn't have found a simpler way to get information on her.
While in Congress, she became the first woman to serve on the House Armed Services Committee. Known in her early tenure for balancing her congressional work with motherhood, even bringing diapers to the floor of Congress, she was known for advocacy on work-family issues, a prime mover behind the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 and the 1985 Military Family Act. Schroeder was also involved in reform of Congress itself, working to weaken the long-standing control of committees by their chairs, sparring with Speaker Carl Albert over congressional "hideaways," and questioning why Members who lived in their offices should not be taxed for the benefit.
She chaired the 1988 presidential campaign of Gary Hart in 1987 until his withdrawal. She then herself ran for President of the United States, before announcing her own withdrawal in an emotional press conference on September 28, 1987. According to her she received hate mail because of her tears even twenty years later. She said to journalists she used to keep a "crying file" on weepy politician episodes, but it got so huge she threw it out.
She did not seek a thirteenth term in 1996, and was succeeded by state house minority whip Diana DeGette, a fellow Democrat. In her farewell press conference, she stated that she had "spent 24 years in a federal institution." The humorous title for her memoir, published in 1998, was 24 years of House Work...and the Place Is Still a Mess.
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