First elected in 1986, Louise McIntosh Slaughter served for
31 years as a U.S. Representative from western New York.
In 2007 she became the first woman to chair the House
Rules Committee. Slaughter, a microbiologist by training,
was an expert on health and women’s issues. “I have always
said that the best training in the world for government is to
be a woman, to be a mother,” Slaughter once noted. “We
learn that our budget has to stretch to the next paycheck . . . that every member of our family has to have food and
clothing and an education.”1
Louise M. Slaughter was born Dorothy Louise
McIntosh on August 14, 1929, in Harlan County,
Kentucky, to Oscar and Daisy Grace Byers.2 Her father was
a blacksmith for a coal mine, and she was a distant relative
of the American folklore figure Daniel Boone. Slaughter
earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the
University of Kentucky in 1951, during a time when few
women pursued careers in scientific fields. She stayed at
the University of Kentucky, and two years later she earned
a MS in public health. She married Robert Slaughter
in 1957. The couple eventually moved to Rochester,
New York, and raised three daughters. After 57 years of
marriage, Robert passed away in 2014.3
Slaughter’s political activism began in 1971 when she
campaigned to save Hart’s Woods in Rochester, one of
few remaining beech-maple forests that existed in North
America when glaciers still covered the continent; Hart’s
Woods became a National Natural Landmark in 1972.4
The experience moved Slaughter toward a career in public
service. She backed George Stanley McGovern’s presidential
campaign in 1972, serving as co-chair of the Monroe
County Citizens for McGovern. She also joined the New
York State Democratic Committee and, in 1976, was
elected to the first of two terms in the Monroe County
legislature. She later worked for Mario Cuomo, then the
New York secretary of state. In 1982 Slaughter defeated
a Republican incumbent to win a seat in the New York
assembly, where she served for four years.5
In 1986 Slaughter sought election to the U.S. House,
running a grassroots campaign to unseat Fred J. Eckert, a
conservative first-term Republican. She defeated Eckert
with 51 percent of the vote. Rochester had traditionally
voted Republican, and over the next decade, Slaughter
won re-election by comfortable but not large margins.
After a later reapportionment placed her in a newer and
safer district—which included much of her old district in
the Rochester area, as well as new sections in Buffalo and
Niagara Falls—she won by 25 points. In 2016 Slaughter
was re-elected to her 16th consecutive term after defeating
Republican Mark Assini.6
Once described by the Washington Post as “a combination
of Southern charm and back-room politics, a Southern
Belle with a cigar in her mouth,” Slaughter used her
unique legislative style and renowned sense of humor to
climb the rungs of power in the House.7 During her time
in the House, she became the second-longest actively
serving Democratic woman and the dean of the New York
delegation. Slaughter worked on a half dozen committees
during her career: Government Operations (later named
Government Reform and Oversight); Public Works and
Transportation; Budget; the Select Committee on Aging;
the Select Committee on Homeland Security; and the
powerful Rules Committee.
On the Budget Committee, Slaughter famously
talked Richard Darman, Budget Director for President
George H. W. Bush, into replacing funding the White
House had removed but which she had fought to include.
“Mr. Darman, I am new to this Committee, and I want
to be friends,” she said. “I did, however, notice . . . you cut
out money for a measure I have worked on for 3 years, to
educate homeless children.”8 Following the hearing, the
Bush administration not only added the money back into
the budget, but it increased the amount.9
Appointed to the Rules Committee in 1989 to fill a
vacancy caused by the death of Claude Denson Pepper, a
former U.S. Senator and 14-term Member from Florida,
Slaughter remained on the powerful committee for the rest
of her time on Capitol Hill. The Rules Committee is unlike
any other standing committee in the House. It is responsible
for setting the terms of debate for every bill that reaches
the floor, and it is empowered to decide if and how many
amendments will be allowed. It naturally works closely with
the Speaker’s Office. By the 109th Congress (2005–2007),
Slaughter was the ranking Democrat on the panel. When
Democrats captured the majority in the 110th and 111th
Congress (2007–2011), Slaughter was selected by Speaker
Nancy Pelosi of California to chair the Rules Committee;
Slaughter was the first woman to chair the committee in
House history. “This is an important body, one charged with
upholding the standards of our House and ensuring that the
will of the American people is done here,” Slaughter said. “It
is a big responsibility, but I know we are ready for it.”10
Under Slaughter’s leadership in the 110th and 111th
Congresses, House Democrats pushed an ambitious agenda.
Her committee successfully brought major legislation to
the House Floor including an economic stimulus package
to help combat the recession following the collapse of
the financial services industry, as well as the Democrats’
signature health care bill, the Affordable Care Act—for
which she received a death threat and a broken window at
her district office back home.11 When Republicans regained
control of the House in the 112th Congress (2011–2013),
Slaughter went back to her spot as Ranking Member
and served in that position for the remainder of her time
in Congress.
Beyond the Rules Committee, Slaughter focused on
three main legislative priorities: science, health, and equal
rights—she was an early supporter in Congress for marriage
equality and LGBTQ rights.12 In the early 1990s, Slaughter
used her position on the Budget Committee to secure $500
million in funding for breast cancer research at the National
Institutes of Health.13 During a meeting with First Lady
Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1993 to discuss women’s health
care, Slaughter was still new to the Budget Committee. “It’s
almost certainly the first time that these guys on the budget
committee have ever heard words like ‘cervix,’ ‘ovaries,’ and
‘breasts’ spoken out loud,” Slaughter said. Clinton replied,
“At least in that context.”14 Later, alongside her work on the
Affordable Care Act, Slaughter sought to protect the privacy
of health care patients across the country. As Congress’s
expert in genetics issues, Slaughter authored and passed the
Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act to prevent
health insurance companies from using a patient’s genetic
history to set different rates and premiums.15
While some bills moved through the House quickly,
Slaughter recognized that some legislation takes time. “It
moves slowly but it moves,” she said. “My philosophy is
always that you don’t stop when you’re gaining ground.”16
Slaughter became a leader on national women’s issues—
ranging from family planning to reducing domestic
violence—and co-chaired the Congressional Women’s
Caucus in the 108th Congress (2003–2005).17 Slaughter
tripled the amount of funding for the United Nations
Development Fund for Women, including its program to
eliminate violence against women. She also led the effort to
enact legislation that established a task force in the Pentagon
to address the problem of sexual assault against women
serving in the Armed Forces.
Slaughter was one of seven Congresswomen who
marched on the Senate Democratic Caucus in 1991 to
protest the treatment of Anita Hill by the all-male Senate
Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearings of
Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.18 Hill had once
worked for Thomas and accused him of sexual harassment.
During Hill’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary
Committee, Senators treated Hill with skepticism and
hostility.19 Slaughter and the other Congresswomen wanted
the Senate to delay the confirmation vote. Reflecting on
the event, Slaughter stated, “Anita Hill touched a chord
in almost every woman in the country. . . . Seeing Anita
confronted with a phalanx of men who had no idea what
she was talking about brought (women) a real sense of ‘I’ve
been there.’”20 While the Senate confirmed Thomas to
the Supreme Court, Hill’s testimony and treatment by the
Senate was a catalyst for the increase in women running for
office nationwide in 1992.
In 1994 Slaughter coauthored the landmark Violence
Against Women Act (VAWA), which stiffened criminal
penalties for domestic abuse and sexual assault. She also
led the effort in 2013 to reauthorize VAWA, including the
extension of protections to same sex couples and women
living on Native American reservations.21 “Authoring the
Violence Against Women Act is one of the most important
things I have done as a member of Congress, and twenty
years later, I am proud to see that it has substantially reduced
the incidence of domestic violence and empowered survivors
to speak out,” Slaughter said. “VAWA turned domestic
violence from private suffering into public outrage,” adding
that “we celebrate the success of VAWA with the solemn
recognition that there is more work to do.”22
Back home, Slaughter steered millions of dollars to local
building and transportation projects in her district and
commissioned studies on the decline in local manufacturing
jobs. She also managed to direct more flights to the region’s
airports and secured funding to develop ferry service across
Lake Ontario, connecting Toronto to Rochester.23
Outside of her focus on gender equality and health care,
Slaughter sought to prevent Members from profiting off
their status as federal lawmakers. In 2006 she authored the
Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, to prohibit
Members of Congress from using what they learned on the
job to influence how they traded stocks. It took six years
of fighting before the bill became law.24 Ultimately, the act
enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support; it passed the House 417 to 2, and cleared the Senate 96 to 3.25 “We’ve
passed one of the most bipartisan bills in this Congress and
I’m proud that my colleagues have joined me to make clear
that the practice of insider trading in Congress needs to be
outlawed once and for all,” she said.26
In 1996 Slaughter remarked that women Democrats
would probably not chair major committees “in our
lifetime.”27 Eleven years later, she chaired one of the House’s
most powerful committees, and women had begun serving
in Congress in record numbers. In 2007, as the new chair of
the House Rules Committee, Slaughter noted that female
lawmakers focused on results because women Members,
herself included, “had to prove ourselves in many ways. I
don’t think we play games. I know I don’t, and the speaker
(Pelosi) doesn’t. It was frankly too hard for us to get elected.”28
Slaughter passed away in Washington, DC, on March
16, 2018, following complications from a fall in her
home. After Slaughter’s death, Doris Matsui of California
remembered her longtime friend. “She stood up for other
women, she always stayed true to who she was,” Matsui
said. “She was genuine. She was a fighter. She loved people.
And she was kind.”29
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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