Schroeder, Pat, 1940-

Patricia Nell Scott Schroeder (born July 30, 1940) is an American lawyer and politician who represented Colorado in the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 1997. A member of the Democratic Party, Schroeder was the first female U.S. Representative elected in Colorado.

Born Patricia Nell Scott in Portland, Oregon, she was raised in Texas, Ohio, and Iowa, ultimately graduating from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, Iowa in 1958. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1961, a member of Phi Beta Kappa majoring in philosophy, history, and political science. She earned a JD from Harvard Law School in 1964. On August 18, 1962, she married a law school classmate, James Schroeder, and the couple moved to Denver, Colorado. Following graduation, Schroeder took a job with the federal government for two years as a field attorney for the National Labor Relations Board. She later moved into private practice, taught law, and volunteered as counsel for Planned Parenthood.

With her husband's encouragement, Schroeder entered the 1972 race for the predominantly Democratic but conservative congressional district encompassing most of Colorado’s capital city of Denver. Running a grassroots campaign, she defeated first-term incumbent Republican Mike McKevitt with 52 percent of the vote. Schroeder was the first woman elected to Congress from Colorado and quickly became a driving force in the 1970s and 1980s as Democrats sought to rein in Cold War expenditures, asserting herself as a major advocate for arms control. Schroeder specialized in women's rights and reforms affecting the family, becoming a founding member of the Congressional Women’s Caucus and co-chairing it for 10 years. Frustrated by the growing partisanship in the House and dissatisfied with the progression of gender equality in Congress, Schroeder retired at the end of her twelfth term.

After a brief teaching stint at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Schroeder was appointed president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers in June 1997. She also was selected to lead a multi-year study for the Institute on Civil Society to identify and promote social programs to encourage social cohesion and restore a sense of community for Americans. Following her tenure at AAP, Schroeder and her husband relocated to Celebration, Florida, a master-planned community built by the Walt Disney Company.