For more than two decades, Representative Marge Roukema
of New Jersey used her seat on the House Financial Services
Committee to help Americans access affordable housing
using a combination of federal programs and private
enterprise. Personal tragedy helped prompt Roukema
toward a career in politics and factored into one of her
great legislative successes: the Family and Medical Leave
Act, which provided job protection and time off for many
Americans to care for loved ones. “In a day and age when
the majority of families need two paychecks to get by, it is
inconceivable that we do not have a minimum guarantee of
job security when a medical emergency strikes,” Roukema
wrote in the New York Times. “The debate over the Family
and Medical Leave Act is not about Federal mandates
or benefit packages. It is about values and a standard of
decency, and protecting the jobs of workers who are trying
to hold on to the American dream.”1
Margaret Roukema was born Margaret Scafati in Newark,
New Jersey, on September 19, 1929. She was named after
her mother. Her father, Claude, was a first-generation Italian
American who worked as an auto mechanic. Roukema
earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science
from Montclair State College in 1951 and then pursued graduate studies there. In 1975 she did graduate work in city
and regional planning at Rutgers University. She worked as
a high school teacher in American history and government
before marrying Richard W. Roukema, a psychiatrist. The
couple raised three children: Greg, Todd, and Meg.
Roukema’s first public service position was on the
board of education in Ridgewood, New Jersey, where she
served from 1970 to 1973. Her political activity was, in
part, spurred by her 17-year-old son, Todd, and his battle
with leukemia. Roukema put aside her plans to attend law
school to care for her son who succumbed to the disease in
October 1976. Roukema later recalled that in the aftermath
of her son’s death, she searched for an emotional and
intellectual outlet.2 She became active in local party politics
as the first woman elected president of the Ridgewood
Republican Club in 1977 and 1978. In 1977 she supported
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Kean, first as a
volunteer before quickly rising to become his campaign
coordinator in 30 towns.
Roukema’s experience helping Kean’s campaign led her to
launch her own candidacy for office. In 1978 she challenged
incumbent Democrat Andrew Gene Maguire for a seat
in the U.S. House from northern New Jersey in a district that encompassed Bergen County and included the towns
of Paramus and Hackensack.3 On Election Day, Roukema
lost by a margin of about 9,000 votes, 53 percent to 47
percent.4 In 1980 Roukema criticized Maguire for being
“out of touch” with the district and challenged him again.
Aided by the strong turnout for Republican presidential
nominee Ronald Reagan that year, Roukema won the seat
by a margin of 9,000 votes. In 1982, after the district lines
were redrawn to include Sussex County, Roukema claimed
an even larger margin of victory: a plurality of 50,000 votes
against Democrat Fritz Cammerzell. In 11 re-elections,
she never had a viable Democratic challenger and captured
between 65 and 71 percent of the vote. In her final two
Republican primaries in 1998 and 2000, however, she faced
stiff challenges. Against a state assemblyman in the 2000
primary, Roukema won by less than 2,000 votes, before
again dominating the general election with 71 percent of
the vote.5
When Roukema entered Congress in 1981, she
received assignments on the Committee on Education and
Labor (later renamed Education and Workforce) and the
Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs (later
renamed Financial Services). She sat on both committees
for the duration of her career in the House, and eventually
chaired two Financial Services subcommittees: Housing and
Community Opportunity; and Financial Institutions and
Consumer Credit. In addition, Roukema worked on the
Education Reform and the Employer-Employee Relations
subcommittees of Education and Workforce. In the 98th
Congress (1983–1985) she joined the newly formed Select
Committee on Hunger as its Ranking Republican; she
served on the Hunger Committee for a decade until it was
disbanded in 1995.
Roukema’s committee assignments enabled her to work
on a number of policies important to her district, including
welfare reform, job training, child support, and family leave.
As Congress considered ways to amend welfare, Roukema
came out strongly for job training programs conducted by
the private sector, believing they were more successful in
placing unemployed individuals into jobs.6 During debate,
Roukema came out against a provision that allowed those
individuals receiving government aid to attend a four-year
college as a way to fulfill the work requirement. “Welfare
reform should not become another adjunct of our higher
education program,” she said.7 The committee ultimately
rejected her attempt to remove the provision.8
In 1983 Roukema introduced the National Child
Support Enforcement Act to strengthen child support
collection. In order to qualify for certain Medicaid funding,
states were required to pass laws allowing child support
payments to be automatically withheld from a parent’s
wages following a finalized court order. She prioritized a
modification that applied to individuals of all economic
classes, not just those on government assistance.9 “Automatic
withholding of wages removes the children as pawns,” she
wrote in a New York Times op-ed.10
In August 1984, President Reagan signed a different
child support bill into law that Roukema had cosponsored.
The act included a wage withholding provision but first
required a court to rule that payments had been 30 days
late.11 When Republicans began working on welfare reform
after taking over the House majority in 1995, Roukema’s
colleagues accepted an amendment she offered that allowed
states to revoke driver’s licenses from residents with late
child support payments.12 She argued her bill would
expedite payments and ultimately lower federal spending.13
Citing data from states with similar procedures in place,
Roukema told the House that when driver’s licenses were
in jeopardy “Parents miraculously come up with the money
that they swore wasn’t available.”14 In 1996, after vetoing
a previous version of the bill, President William J. (Bill)
Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work
Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which included
Roukema’s provision.15
Her biggest legislative achievement was the passage
of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, a bill that
Roukema and Democrat Patricia Schroeder of Colorado
had worked on for years. The legislation required large
companies to extend unpaid leave to new parents, workers
who had a disability, and those caring for chronically ill
relatives. During negotiations on the bill Roukema secured
an exemption for small business; it ended up being the
key compromise which helped the measure pass. “Is the
Family and Medical Leave Act a radical departure from the
traditions of American labor law? Not at all,” she wrote in
the New York Times in 1990. “It is completely consistent
with established labor standards that gave us such protections
as child labor laws, anti-sweatshop codes and the 40-hour
work week. As society has changed, we have always adjusted
our labor standards to meet the new circumstances.”16
Roukema’s experience caring for her son when he was
ill shaped her perspective on the issue. “When my son Todd was stricken with leukemia and needed home care,
I was free to remain at home and give him the loving
care he needed,” Roukema said in a speech on the House
Floor. “But what of the millions of mothers who work for
the thousands of companies that do not have family leave
policies?”17 Roukema later recalled, “The tragedy with Todd
was what made me so determined about the Family and
Medical Leave Act.”18
While Roukema worked with Republicans to lower costs
and limit federal spending, she generally tended to cross party
lines to vote with Democrats on social issues; she supported
abortion rights and gun control, for instance. In 1994, she
was one of just 11 Republicans to vote with Democrats to
ban assault weapons as part of a large anti-crime bill.19
As Roukema gained more seniority, she became more
critical of the GOP’s conservative turn during the 1980s
and 1990s. Amid an investigation into the fundraising
practices of House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia,
Roukema suggested that an interim Speaker be named until
the House Ethics Committee finished its probe. When
the House levied a $300,000 fine against Gingrich for
breaking ethics rules, Roukema insisted that he pay it from
personal rather than campaign funds.20 During a speech on
the House Floor in May 1997, she condemned Republican
efforts to cut $38 million in funding for a major nutrition
program for children and pregnant women. “We are not
going to take food out of the mouths of little babies!” she
declared. “Don’t we ever learn?” In an interview at the time
she warned, “Our party will either become a true majority
party, or a regional party” rooted in the South. “And the
way you maintain a majority,” she concluded, “is to find
consensus within your party.”21
By the 107th Congress (2001–2003), Roukema was the
Ranking Republican on the Financial Services Committee,
but party leadership skipped over her when picking the new
chair. “The fact that I was a woman had something to do
with it,” she told the New York Times. Her outspokenness
and her refusal to raise prodigious amounts of campaign
money for her party also contributed to the decision, she
added. “I was an Independent voter in Congress, and I voted
my conscience and my state,” Roukema recalled several years
later. “That brought me down in [leadership’s] estimation. I
was not elected to do what leadership [said]. I was elected to
do what my intelligence, my conscience, and my constituents
needed…. That was my reason for being in Congress.”22 In
2001 she was offered a position as United States Treasurer in the George W. Bush administration but turned down the
offer to serve as chair of the Financial Services’s Housing and
Community Opportunity Subcommittee.
Roukema used her power as subcommittee chair to steer
three of her housing bills through the Financial Services
Committee, two of which passed the House. In May
2001, she introduced the Senior Housing Commission
Extension Act which gave a federal panel more time to
develop guidelines for aging-in-place. It also created
partnerships between businesses and government agencies
to provide housing and care for people who need it. The
bill passed the House in September 2001.23 Armed with
the housing subcommittee gavel, Roukema also worked
with Democratic Senator Paul Spyros Sarbanes of Maryland
in July 2001 to introduce the Mark-to-Market Extension
Act. The bill protected a federal program which helped the
Department of Housing and Urban Developing lower rents
for people living with government assistance in multifamily
properties while also providing mortgage relief for housing
developments. The Mark-to-Market Extension Act passed
the House in September 2001.24
A few months later, in March 2002, Roukema introduced
the Housing Affordability for America Act. The huge bill,
which was also marked up in the Judiciary Committee,
came after 13 hearings on affordability issues in Roukema’s
Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee.
“Congress must continue to seek ways to remove the
barriers that prevent certain segments of the population
from realizing the American dream of homeownership,”
the Financial Service’s report on Roukema’s legislation said.
“One way to do that is to provide opportunities that allow
families to acquire and build wealth toward the goal of
homeownership.” At the heart of the bill was a compromise
that created a federal grant program to match state and
local “trust funds” used to provide low-cost housing.
“Clearly,” the committee report continued, “States and
localities are better equipped to know how best to meet the
housing needs of their communities.” The bill also opened
opportunities for first-time homebuyers, changed how the
Federal Housing Authority calculated mortgage limits, and
worked to find solutions to help elderly Americans grow old
at home. Roukema’s bill made it out of committee but was
never voted on in the House.25
In November 2001, Roukema announced that she would
not seek re-election to a twelfth term. At the time of her
retirement in January 2003, Roukema was the dean of her state delegation and the dean of the women Members. She
returned to New Jersey where she served on the boards of
several nonprofits dedicated to children’s issues. She also
lectured about politics at several universities.26 Roukema
suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease and died on November
12, 2014, at the age of 85, in Wyckoff, New Jersey.27
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