Clinton's impeachment was opposed by Holtzman,who stated that the crimes he was accused of were not comparable to the crimes that Richard Nixon was accused of. She also said that Ken Starr "overstepped his jurisdiction" by not conducting his report in a similar manner to Leon Jaworski,the special counsel for Nixon's impeachment.[17] In 2006,she wrote in favor of impeaching President George W. Bush in The Nation.[18]
On March 28,1972,Holtzman announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the United States House of Representatives from New York's 16th congressional district. Michael Churchill was her campaign manager. In the primary,she faced incumbent Representative Emanuel Celler,the dean of the House of Representatives and chair of the Judiciary Committee,who was first elected in 1922.[23][24][25] It was the first time Holtzman had run for public office. She believed that Celler was vulnerable as he had no district office,his residency was under question,and he largely went unmentioned in his district's political circles. After she filed to run against him,Celler said,"As far as I'm concerned,she doesn't exist."[26] Holtzman criticized Celler's low voting attendance,which she said negated his seniority.[27]
Celler had the support of the Liberal Party of New York and the Democratic political machine in Brooklyn.[23] This was the second time that he had faced opposition in a primary.[28] Holtzman raised around $32,000 and borrowed $4,000 during the primary,though she was told she needed $100,000 to run her campaign.[29][30] She defeated Celler and Robert O'Donnell in the primary.[31] Donald Zimmerman,who aided in the redistricting after the 1970 United States census,stated that Celler's demand that his district remain Jewish,rather than a proposed 60-40 split between whites and blacks,caused him to lose as Zimmerman did not "think Liz could have won as a reformer in a district that wasn't all Jewish."[32]
Celler attempted to have the primary voided and another one held,but Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Dominic Rinaldi ruled against him and the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court ruled unanimously against him.[33][34] The New York Court of Appeals ruled five to two against Celler.[35] Although Celler was still on the general election ballot as the Liberal Party nominee,he announced on September 28 that he would end his campaign.[36] Holtzman defeated Republican nominee Nicholas R. Macchio Jr. and Conservative nominee William Sampol in the election.[37]
Celler was the longest-serving House member to lose reelection,and blamed his defeat on his own overconfidence.[38][39]Time called Holtzman "Liz the Lion Killer".[40] At the time,she was the youngest woman ever elected to the United States Congress,at age 31. This was later outdone by Elise Stefanik,who was elected to Congress in 2014 at age 30,and who was in turn surpassed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,who was elected to Congress in 2018 at age 29.[41][42][43]
In the 1974 election,Holtzman,who also had the Liberal nomination,defeated Republican and Conservative nominee Joseph L. Gentili.[44] On June 15,1976,she announced that she would run for reelection and defeated Republican and Conservative nominee Gladys Pemberton in the 1976 election.[45][46] She defeated Republican and United Taxpayers nominee Larry Penner and Conservative nominee John H. Fox in the 1978 election.[47] Holtzman left the House after four terms in order to run for the Senate.[48]
In 1979,U.S. Representative Jimmy Wilson,who had narrowly lost reelection the previous year to Buddy Leach,accused Leach of purchasing enough votes to win both the primary and general elections. The House voted 241 to 153 not to advance Wilson's objections on a mostly party-line vote. Holtzman was one of only four Democrats to vote in support of Wilson's challenge.[59][60][61]
Holtzman was one of the first members of the Judiciary Committee to support starting impeachment proceedings against Nixon,in 1973.[66] The committee voted,with Holtzman voting no,to extend the deadline for Nixon to hand over his tape recordings.[67] She voted in favor of an attempt by Representative John Conyers to have Nixon cited for contempt of Congress that failed,32 to 5.[68]
Holtzman wrote Article IV of the impeachment charges,which charged Nixon with the violation of the War Powers Clause,and it was introduced by Conyers. It failed,26 to 12,and Holtzman later said,"I regret it,because I think the right to take people's lives unilaterally and secretly and with enormous power,and the perversion of that power,is certainly as serious as anything else the President did."[69]
Holtzman voted against advancing Gerald Ford's vice presidential confirmation in the Judiciary Committee and at the final vote.[70][71] She asked Ford whether he had made a deal with Nixon to pardon him. She also asked if the pardon and an agreement that the tapes belonged to Nixon was in order to prevent the release of conversations between him and Nixon.[72] She,Conyers,and Henry S. Reuss asked Charles Ruff to investigate Ford for perjury at his vice-presidential confirmation hearing.[73][74] She also asked Attorney General Edward H. Levi to investigate claims of perjury and alleged a cover-up after he declined to investigate.[75] She made a motion in the Judiciary Committee to launch a probe into the pardon,but it failed,four to three.[76]
It was speculated that Holtzman might run in the 1976 United States Senate election in New York.[77] She said that she was "testing the voters" for a senatorial campaign on May 5, 1979.[78] On January 8, 1980, she announced her senatorial candidacy, being the first Democrat to formally announce, for the 1980 election.[79][80] Linda Davidoff was her campaign manager.[4]
At the state Democratic convention, Holtzman received 38% of the delegate vote on the first ballot, above the required 25% support to appear on the ballot without petitioning, but not enough to gain the party's endorsement.[81] She attempted to gain the Liberal nomination, but the party selected incumbent Senator Jacob Javits.[82] She won the Democratic primary, making her the first woman to win a major-party U.S. Senate nomination in New York.[83][84]
Republican, Conservative, and Right to Life nominee Al D'Amato defeated Holtzman.[85] D'Amato's victory was attributed to Javits splitting the vote between him and Holtzman, and she lost by 1% to D'Amato as a result.[86][87] She raised $1,869,183 and spent $2,003,548 during the campaign.[88] She did not concede the election.[4] Holtzman attributed her defeat to a lack of financial support from the Democratic Party and President Jimmy Carter's unpopularity.[89]
On February 6, 1992, Holtzman announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the 1992 U.S. Senate election.[91] She filed a complaint against D'Amato to the United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics, accusing him of illegally using his franking privilege, worth $461,000, to send a letter to three million New Yorkers stating that there was not enough evidence to charge him in 1991, but the committee dismissed the complaint.[92][93] At the state Democratic convention, Holtzman received 28% of the delegate vote on the first ballot, but her support declined to 2% on the second ballot and 1% on the third ballot. Geraldine Ferraro won the endorsement.[94]
Holtzman focused on negative advertising against Ferraro, saying that it was "a legitimate and valid way of showing the voters the differences", as Ferraro was declining to attend debates at the time. Governor Mario Cuomo and Ms. founding editor Letty Cottin Pogrebin criticized her for the ads.[95][96][97] Holtzman also demanded that Ferraro donate $340,000 to child sex abuse victims, the amount of rent she had received from Star Distributors Inc., a photographing company that was alleged to be affiliated with the mafia.[98]
Multiple feminists criticized Holtzman for her attacks on Ferraro, including Pogrebin and Bella Abzug, though Betty Friedan endorsed Holtzman.[99][100] She placed last of the four candidates in the Democratic primary, after having raised $3,037,868 and spent $2,929,109, and was accused of costing Ferraro the primary.[101][102][103] Ferraro said that Holtzman's negative campaigning hurt Democratic nominee Robert Abrams in the general election and allowed D'Amato to win reelection.[104]
Later life
District Attorney
Brooklyn District Attorney Eugene Gold declined to run for reelection in 1981,[105] and wanted his executive assistant Norman Rosen to succeed him.[106] Holtzman launched her campaign on July 22,[107] and was given the Liberal ballot line while Rosen received the Republican line.[108] Rosen was supported by Mayor Ed Koch and Brooklyn's Democratic political machine.[109] During the campaign, Rosen ran a radio commercial that stated, "Liz Holtzman, she's a nice girl; maybe I'd like to have her as a daughter, but not as a DA."[110] Holtzman won the nomination due to strong support from black voters.[111][112] Her election made her first female district attorney in New York City and the second in New York State.[84]
Holtzman was an opponent of Meade Esposito, the chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party and its political machine, during her political career and reduced his control over the district attorney's office. Before her tenure, black people were excluded from working in the homicide bureau. The police union picketed her office in 1985, calling her a "persecutor of cops" and claimed she was "soft on crime" after she created a special unit to investigate police brutality.[4]
Fleet Financial Group loaned $455,000 to Holtzman's 1992 senatorial campaign. Sheila Levin, the chief fundraiser for the Re-Elect Liz Holtzman Committee, was investigated by the New York City Department of Investigation and New York County District Attorney for providing false information on the bank application.[116] The NYCDOI report found Holtzman "grossly negligent" and stated that Levin accepted $3,000 in campaign contributions from Fleet executives.[117] Holtzman placed second in the primary and lost the runoff to Hevesi, with the controversy around her campaign loan being blamed for her defeat.[118][119]
Holtzman supported the Equal Rights Amendment and was the leading sponsor of legislation to extend its deadline.[124][125] She criticized Celler during the 1972 election for opposing the legislation and preventing its passage by the Judiciary Committee.[126]
The Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization was excluded from the 1992 New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade. Holtzman and other elected officials boycotted the parade and instead marched with the ILGO in a separate parade.[128][129][130]
Holtzman criticized the Immigration and Naturalization Service in April 1974 for allowing around 50 alleged Naziwar criminals to live in the U.S. In 1977, she and 42 other representatives introduced legislation calling for the deportation of all aliens who had engaged in Nazi war crimes.[139] The INS reopened its case on Andrija Artuković, an Ustaše war criminal, at the request of Holtzman and other members of Congress.[140] Holtzman asked for Austrian President Kurt Waldheim not to be allowed inside the U.S. due to his involvement with the Nazis.[4] In 1977, she proposed legislation, co-sponsored by 39 Democratic and 11 Republican members of the House, that would require the deportation of all aliens who participated in Nazi war crimes and bar them from the U.S.[141]
Holtzman sent a list of South Vietnamese people, including Nguyễn Cao Kỳ and Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, to the INS for investigation of their involvement in war crimes. Nguyễn Ngọc Loan was going to be deported to stand trial in Vietnam for the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém, but Carter halted his deportation.[145][146][147]
In 1975, Holtzman voted against legislation to give Robert E. Lee his citizenship back and unsuccessfully proposed an amendment to extend the citizenship return to draft dodgers and protesters who renounced their citizenship in protest of the Vietnam War.[148] She asked the INS to investigate Sun Myung Moon, asking whether he could be deported for inducing or assisting the entry of illegal immigrants or for failing to report his criminal record.[149] She and Senator Ted Kennedy wrote the Refugee Act of 1980.[16]
Who Said It Would Be Easy?: One Woman's Life in the Political Arena (with Cynthia L. Cooper). Arcade Publishing (May 30, 1996); ISBN978-1-55970-302-4
The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens (with Cynthia L. Cooper). Nation Books (August 22, 2006); ISBN978-1-56025-940-4
Cheating Justice: How Bush and Cheney Attacked the Rule of Law and Plotted to Avoid Prosecution- and What We Can Do about It (with Cynthia L. Cooper). Beacon Press (February 7, 2012); ISBN978-0-8070-0321-3
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