Elizabeth Holtzman (born August 11, 1941) is an American attorney and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives from New York's 16th congressional district as a member of the Democratic Party from 1973 to 1981. She then served as district attorney of Kings County from 1982 to 1989, and as the 40th Comptroller of New York City from 1990 to 1993. Holtzman ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in New York's 10th congressional district in the 2022 election. Early life and education Elizabeth Holtzman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on August 11, 1941, to Russian immigrants Sidney Holtzman, a lawyer, and Filia Ravitz, who had a doctorate from Columbia University and later headed the Russia department at Hunter College. She has a twin brother. Her family is Jewish, and she attended Hebrew school. She attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School and Abraham Lincoln High School. She was elected vice president of the student government in 1958, while her brother was its president. Holtzman graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1961, where she majored in American history and literature, and from Harvard Law School in 1965. She was one of 15 women in the 500 students in her Harvard Law School class. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Career Legal and education Holtzman joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee while at Harvard. She worked on civil rights cases in Georgia and for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. During her time in Georgia she worked as a law clerk for Chevene Bowers King. She was admitted to the New York State Bar Association. She began working for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in 1970, and left to run for office in 1972. She was elected to the Harvard Board of Overseers in 1976, and worked at New York University School of Law from 1981 to 1982. Holtzman was a member of a delegation that went to Paraguay to search for Josef Mengele in 1984. President Bill Clinton appointed her to the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group. In 2013, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel appointed her to a panel to review the handling of sexual assault cases in the military. She was appointed to the Homeland Security Advisory Council in 2014, but resigned in protest of the family separation policy for the Mexico–United States border. Holtzman