Representative Nita M. Lowey Papers

Mr. Speaker, I rise to address this house for the final time. For thirty-two years it has been my privilege to serve as United States Representative from the State of New York and in the 116th Congress it has been my distinct honor to be the first Chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee. ... There is one principle that has guided my thirty-two years of public service: when you see a problem, whether it's here or in the district or in another community, do something about it. Too many people see a problem, they are good people, but they'll go off on this personal activity or another personal activity. Members of Congress know when they see a problem, we have a responsibility to address it and do something about it to make life better for our community, the nation, and the world... (Representative Nita Lowey's Last Speech to Congress, C-Span, 2020)

The Representative Nita Lowey’s papers consist of the entirety of her thirty-two year career as Congressional Representative of the 20th District (1989-1993), the 18th District (1993-2013), and the 17th District (2013-2021) of New York, covering Westchester and Rockland Counties, and at times, small sections of Queens and the Bronx.

Nita Sue Melnikoff was born in 1937 in the Bronx, New York, not far from Yankee Stadium, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. The Melnikoff household kept kosher, and while not Orthodox, she attended Orthodox Hebrew schools in her youth. Lowey ultimately graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and the first of the Seven Sisters Schools, Mount Holyoke College (School photo here). While not a religious school, Mount Holyoke required students to attend church, which was a predicament for Jews in a school with less than a 10% Jewish student body. Melnikoff and a group of Jewish friends gathered to hold Shabbat services, and she would become the president of the Jewish student group. In 1958, she interned with Hubert Humphrey and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington, D.C., where she got her first taste of politics.

After graduating with a degree in political science (Class of ‘59), she worked at the Rubicon and Young advertising agency, quitting to marry Stephen Lowey in 1961. Stephen graduated from Harvard and Columbia University Law School and worked for three years as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The Loweys would have three children: Dana, Jacqueline, and Douglas, and the family moved from Queens to the City of Harrison in Westchester. While raising her family, Nita Lowey actively worked in her community and on the Parent-Teachers Association, while Stephen left the DA’s office and formed what would eventually become the law firm of Lowey Dannenberg, specializing in securities, antitrust, and consumer protection law.

Lowey’s political career started fifteen years after raising her family, and she put her undergraduate degree in political science to work. Her involvement in New York State Democratic government began in 1975 where she worked for ten years as a staff member of the New York Secretary of State for Economic Development and Neighborhood Preservation. For two of those years, future New York State Governor Mario Cuomo was Secretary of State from 1975-1978, and in 1977, Lowey became the primary fundraiser for Cuomo’s run for New York City Mayor that year. While he lost that race, he would eventually become governor in 1982. In 1985, Lowey became the New York Assistant Secretary of State, leaving that position in 1988 to run for—and win—the office of U.S. Representative in the 100th Congress of the United States of America until her retirement in the 116th Congress in 2021.

Lowey ran for the 20th District against the gaffeprone and staunch President Reagan supporter, two-term Republican Representative Joseph DioGuardi. DioGuardi had filled the seat of ten-term Representative Richard Ottinger when he abruptly retired from his seat in 1984, with DioGuardi winning a narrow race to replace him. In the next election, DioGuardi faced former Manhattan Representative Bella Abzug, who had not held political office since 1976 after an unsuccessful race for the Senate. DioGuardi campaigned against Abzug as a political outsider and carpetbagger after she moved from Manhattan to Mount Vernon, but he could not use that argument in his run against Lowey, as she had lived in Westchester since the 1960s. Lowey won the seat by a 50%-47% margin, and over the years of her representing the district, her seat was relatively safe.

Lowey, former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and former president Bill Clinton are friends and Lowey was their representative as well since the Clintons live within Lowey’s former districts. In 2000, Lowey considered pursuing a run from the House of Representatives to the Senate, but once Clinton announced her plans to run for the junior New York State spot, Lowey announced her plan to remain in the House. In 2001, Lowey became the first woman to head the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Despite her leadership, Democrats did not win back the House back in the 2002 election.

In 2013, Lowey set another milestone by becoming the first woman Ranking Democrat of the House Appropriations Committee. It was a challenging time, particularly after 2017 with tensions heating up between former President Trump and Democratic leaders in both the House and Senate regarding Trump’s Southern border wall, and the thirty-five-day partial shutdown of the government in 2018. In 2019, Lowey became the first woman to Chair Appropriations, and in 2020, Lowey spearheaded the first two of three bills committed to the relief of the American people during what she called the “most difficult time I can remember as a member of Congress” in an April 13, 2020 interview with C-Span.

During Lowey’s career, she was the primary sponsor of twenty-six bills that were enacted, among them Appropriations bills and joint resolutions, disaster relief, renaming government buildings in Westchester, honoring Thomas Paine, and making grants available for research on breast cancer and environmental connections. She was a driving force in food allergen warning labeling and Mother's Against Drunk Driving (MADD) legislation on DWI .08 breath analysis. In 2017, Lowey introduced H.R. 672 (115th) Combating European Anti-Semitism Act of 2017. The bill requires the Department of State to include in the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom information regarding occurrences of antisemitism in European countries “where there have been particularly significant threats or attacks against Jewish persons or institutions."

Lowey's overall tenure as a member of the Democratic Party has been one of a center-left supporter of reproductive rights and a center-right supporter of Israel and a two-state solution in regards to Palestinian Territories. She pushed for education funding nationally and internationally, particularly funding the education of children in Muslim countries. In 1991, Lowey voted against the Iraq War, but supported the 2002 Iraq War Resolution. Lowey was a proponent of the 1994 Clinton Crime Bill and a supporter of law enforcement and first responders, particularly those affected by the 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attacks.

In 1991, Lowey appeared in an iconic New York Times photograph featuring her and several of her fellow Congresswomen approaching the stairs of the Capitol in opposition to the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the midst of his confirmation hearing and appearance by lawyer Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of misconduct.

In 2020, Speaker Nancy Pelosi presented the official portrait unveiling of Representative Lowey as the first woman in the 155-year history of the House Appropriations Committee to serve as Committee Chair. The portrait, by Jon Friedman of the United States Capitol Historical Society, is unlike the portraits of those men who proceeded her. Lowey is pictured in her signature suit in a bright blue color with a wide, confident smile, sitting in front of a window overlooking the Mall with the Washington Monument rising behind her. Over her right shoulder is a photograph picture of her family and to her left, a photograph portrait of her husband, with the Appropriation Chair's gavel at her hand on the desk.

Committee Assignments of Rep. Nita Lowey, 1989-2020

House Committee - Appropriations

Appropriations - Chair

State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs

Chair

House Committee

Education and Labor

House Committee

Homeland Security

House Committee

Merchant Marine and Fisheries

House Committee

Select Committee on Homeland Security

House Committee

Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control

Joint Committee

Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform - Chair