Holtzman, Elizabeth, 1941-

Elizabeth Holtzman (born August 11, 1941) is an American attorney and politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives. A Democrat, she represented New York's 16th congressional district for four terms from 1973 to 1981. After leaving Congress, she became the first woman to serve as District Attorney of Kings County (1982-1989) and the first woman to hold the office of New York City Comptroller (1990-1993).

A native of Brookly, New York, she graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School there before earning degrees from Radcliffe College of Harvard University and Harvard Law School, one of only 15 women in a class of nearly 500 men at the latter. While at Harvard Law, she was a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), assisted in creating the Law Students' Civil Rights Research Council, taught English at Harvard College, and was a law clerk for civil rights attorney C. B. King.

In 1965, Holtzman joined the New York City law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and she was admitted to the bar in 1966. From 1967 to 1970, Holtzman served on the staff of Mayor John V. Lindsay, and worked as a liaison between the Mayor's office and the city Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs. From 1970 to 1972, she was a member of the New York State Democratic Committee and Democratic Committee leader for the New York State Assembly district that included her residence, and she was a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. She was also a founder of the Brooklyn Women's Political Caucus.

In 1972 Holtzman mounted a long-shot campaign to unseat incumbent Congressman Emanuel Celler, who had represented central Brooklyn for half a century and was chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. Though she lacked the funding that Celler mustered for the Democratic primary, Holtzman mounted an energetic grassroots campaign by canvassing the urban district. Playing up Celler's opposition to womens' rights and his support of the War in Vietnam, Holtzman won the nomination by a narrow margin of 635 votes. In her subsequent three re-election bids, Holtzman never was seriously challenged, winning with margins of 70 percent or more. During her four terms in the House, Holtzman earned national prominence as an active member of the Judiciary Committee during the President Richard M. Nixon impeachment inquiry and as a cofounder of the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues.

In 1980, rather than seek re-election for a fifth term in the House, Holtzman entered the Democratic primary for nomination to the Senate, winning by a nine-point margin to become the first woman nominated for a Senate seat in New York's history. Facing Republican nominee Alfonse D'Amato and incumbent Jacob Javits, running as the candidate of the Liberal Party, Holtzman lost the election by a margin of one percent. A year after the loss of the Senate seat, Holtzman was elected district attorney of Brooklyn and served in that office until she was elected comptroller of New York City in 1989. In 1992, she unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for the Senate. Losing her bid for the Democratic nomination for city comptroller in 1993, Holtzman entered private law practice in New York City and published her memoirs in 1996.