Three-term incumbent Patty Murray (D-WA) is a powerhouse in the US Senate. A senior member of the appropriations committee, Murray brings billions in federal dollars home to Washington State, most notably as chair of the transportation appropriations committee, where she’s been a champion for Sound Transit. It would be regional suicide to lose Murray at a moment when the Puget Sound’s economic future is predicated on expanding light rail.
Murray’s other earmarks—a fancy word for budget line items—include everything from money for YWCA domestic violence programs in Yakima to infrastructure fixes at McChord Air force Base to law enforcement dollars directed at fighting meth in Tacoma to diesel-electric hybrid buses in Spokane.
Republicans have tried to use Murray’s talent for getting local projects into the budget as a gripe against her this election, citing it as evidence of her spendthrift ways. (Fact check: Earmarks make up less than one percent of the federal budget.) Moreover, the criticism that her line items for defense, cops, and social services add to the deficit doesn’t make sense because getting something in the budget requires knocking something else out. We’re glad Murray has Washington’s back.
Murray makes no apologies about her ability to bring home the bacon: “When I come to D.C., it is my responsibility to fight for my home state.”
Meanwhile, Murray has a stellar record on the big issues: Health care reform (yea); financial reform (yea); global warming (yea—the EPA should be able to regulate greenhouse gas emissions); immigration reform (yea on creating a path to citizenship); abortion rights (she’s adamantly pro-choice and led the fight to make emergency contraception available over the counter). Vote after vote, Murray’s record lines up with the Obama agenda that Washington State voters loudly supported in 2008. At a time when the Democrats need every one of their 60 votes to overcome cynical—and seemingly weekly—GOP filibuster threats in order to extend unemployment insurance or pass equal rights legislation like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, PubliCola is glad Murray’s in D.C.
Murray isn’t scared to vote her conscience when it matters most. She was one of just 23 liberals who voted against the Iraq War back in 2002, and she’s currently co-sponsoring one of our favorite bills in D.C.—the DISCLOSE Act, which would require independent expenditure groups that do political attack ads to identify their corporate backers. (The Republicans filibustered that one yesterday, but it’s coming back.)
Murray’s main rival, two-time failed gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi, comes on strong with language about bipartisanship. But that campaign rhetoric does not match Rossi’s own hotly partisan record as a state senator in the early 2000s, when he voted with big business 100 percent of the time (how do you think he would have voted on the bailouts he’s currently and conveniently criticizing?) and against environmental, labor, and civil rights legislation. His campaign has relied on unimaginative Republican platitudes (small government, less taxes, the American Dream) while his few specific policy points—repeal health care reform and Wall Street reform— seem to be framed by the National Republican Senatorial Committee and by his spokeswoman, a former staffer for Republican Senate Minority leader Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) office.
The other main GOP candidate in this top-two primary is Clint Didier, an Eastern Washington farmer and former pro football player. Didier is taking up the Tea Party cause and gaining traction with the Republican base. His campaign is also heavy on the rhetoric, although it’s much more histrionic than Rossi’s on issues like immigration reform (send troops to the border) and abortion (opposed, with no exceptions) and education (“shut down the DOE.”)
Didier’s a quotable dude. When we interviewed him, he referred to Murray as the “housewife in tennis shoes” and himself as a “farmer in work boots.” And in a recent profile, he told the Seattle Times: “We’ve got to get rid of this, ‘protecting the weak.’ If we keep the weak alive all the time, it eats up the strong, and then our economy will never come back.”
Sending a pour-and-stir Republican like Rossi (who’s already been rejected by voters twice) or a hard line conservative like Didier (who’s out of sync with Washington voters) to the Senate on 2010’s generic wave of discontent would be a rash blunder with long-term consequences.
PubliCola picks Patty Murray.
