Mary Louis Smith Chair - Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics - The Road to the White House: Where are the Women?

Patricia Scott Schroeder left Congress undefeated in 1996 after serving in the United States House of Representatives for 24 years. While in Congress, she worked on important legislation for women's health and military families and introduced the Family and Medical Leave Act. Schroeder is one of the few women in a major political party to explore a run for the president, which she considered in 1987. She is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association of American Publishers, a national trade organization of the U.S. book publishing industry. Before assuming her post at AAP, she taught at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She is also leading New Century/New Solutions, an out-of-the-box think tank, for the Institute for Civil Society in Newton, MA; co-chairs the Democracy Online Project's National Task Force; and serves on the Marguerite Casey Foundation Board of Directors. A graduate of Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, she graduated from Harvard Law School, one of only 15 women in a class of more than 500.