As She Retires, Nita Lowey is Feted with Portrait Unveiling in Washington

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Artist Jon Friedman's likeness of retiring Congresswoman Nita Lowey

December 8, 2020

By Barrett Seaman—

A cavalcade of admirers marched across the Zoom screen on Monday evening as the many whose lives and causes were touched by Nita Lowey appeared on-screen to pay her tribute. The occasion was the unveiling of Lowey’s portrait by artist Jon Friedman in the House Appropriations Hearing Room in the Capitol Building. Loyal staff members, current and past, celebrities including Richard Gere and Bono—even Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street—sang her praises upon her retirement from Congress at age 83, after 32 years in office.

It wasn’t the star quality that brought them; it was their causes that Lowey championed over the years: Bono, for his support for HIV Aids funding, Richard Gere for defense of Tibet and its principal religion, Buddhism, and the Muppets for her help in winning federal aid for public television and children’s issue in general.

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As a key member and for the last two years chair of the House Appropriations Committee, which controls where taxpayers’ money goes, Lowey had enormous sway over a wide range of issues. She has been particularly influential in programs related to women’s health and rights as well as children and education, not only in the U.S. but around the world. “It was kind of fun,” said Lowey of the tribute. “I’ve worked with all those people for years.”

Asked if she could name an achievement she was particularly proud of, Lowey ran off a list of causes that gave little hint as to which might have been number one: funding for Homeland Security, after school programs, breast cancer research, drunk driving reduction, family planning, and local issues like last year’s $21 million to fund restoration of Long Island Sound or the 2013 securing of the loan to build the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge.

Her attempt to name any disappointments yielded only admissions of marginal shortfalls in otherwise successful efforts to curb drug use, fund cancer research, and help rebuild after Hurricane Sandy. “You wish you could have been more successful,” she allowed.

She leaves a Congress that she feels has been hamstrung by partisanship, and she blames one person. “The real problem now,” she says, is the impact that President Trump has on my Republican colleagues.” As a longtime practitioner of bipartisan legislating, Lowey leaves a body that has been rendered ineffective by the unwillingness to bend. Describing it as “very, very worrisome,” she adds, “I wish Trump would leave and live his life and let our current president [-elect] be the outstanding president he will be.”

Her advice to her successor, Mondaire Jones: mind the store back home. “The most important thing is respond to your constituents,” she says, adding,” I think he’s sensitive to the fact that you have to keep in touch.” As the outgoing representative of NY District 17, Lowey can boast that she has done just that. “I had an incredible office,” she says, “headed by Pat Keegan.”

Fond of traveling, which she got to do as a member of Congress, Lowey acknowledges that she won’t be able to do as much under the pall of the pandemic. But until she can, she says, “I have a great, supportive husband and eight grandchildren.”