Nita M. Lowey, a veteran legislator from New York who served 16 terms until her retirement at the end of the 116th Congress, died on Saturday. The cause was breast cancer, her family announced. She was 87.
Lowey, a Democrat, represented well-heeled Rockland and Westchester counties during her tenure in the House starting after the 1988 elections, when she flipped a seat then held by a Republican, Joseph J. DioGuardi.
She won a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee in 1993, where she forged close relationships with two other women who were also rising stars in the party: Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Pelosi would go on to become the first female speaker in House history.
