Patty Murray is the senior senator from Washington, first elected in 1992. She has come a long way from her entry in politics as a parent-activist. Murray is now a powerful Senate backroom player, with responsibility for ensuring that Democrats retain their majority in the 2012 elections.
Murray grew up in the Seattle suburb of Bothell, one of seven children of a disabled World War II veteran. She graduated from Washington State University in 1972, married and stayed home to raise her children. In 1980, she was in Olympia trying to save a parent education class she was teaching at Shoreline Community College, which was the target of budget cuts. A state legislator told her gruffly, “You’re just a mom in tennis shoes. You can’t make a difference.” As she said later, “Almost every woman I’ve ever met in politics got into it because she was mad about something.” She won her fight over the parents’ class, and then ran for the Shoreline School District board. She eventually was chosen to be board president. In 1988, she challenged a Republican state senator, knocked on 17,000 doors and won the seat. Then in late 1991, Murray decided to run against U.S. Sen. Brock Adams, a Democrat who was under a cloud following charges of sexual harassment. He ultimately decided not to seek re-election.
Amid a crowd of better-known, conventional male politicians, Murray, with her flat, Midwestern-style accent and “mom in tennis shoes” line, attracted most of the attention. In the 1992 all-party primary, her main Democratic opponent was former U.S. Rep. Don Bonker, who had narrowly lost a Senate nomination in 1988. But Murray won 28% of the total vote to Bonker’s 19%. She then sprinted to a big lead in polls against Republican U.S. Rep. Rod Chandler, winning 54%-46% in November.
In the Senate, Murray has had a largely liberal voting record. In the 111th Congress (2009-10) she was among the 20 most liberal senators, ahead of her Democratic Washington colleague Maria Cantwell, according to National Journal’s annual rankings. Murray generally leaves the spotlight to others, but does not shy from openly taking on administration officials. In what she calls her “angry mom” voice, she has rebuked Republican and Democratic secretaries of the Department of Veterans Affairs for proposals that would make veterans pay more for health care. “Ask my kids about it,” she said of such confrontations to The Olympian newspaper in October 2010. “There is a line they knew they shouldn’t cross.” That same year, she and Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., led a protest against the Obama administration’s plans to shutter the nuclear waste repository site at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, asserting that the decision violated the 1987 law that designated the site for study.
On the Appropriations Committee, Murray quickly ingratiated herself with more senior colleagues. After Alaska’s Ted Stevens, the former GOP chairman, lost his bid for re-election in 2008, he gave Murray the desk that once belonged to legendary Washington Democrat Warren Magnuson (1944-81). And when West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd was too ill in 2007 and 2008 to manage spending bills on the floor as chairman, he gave Murray the task ahead of more-senior members. Murray chairs the Appropriations subcommittee on transportation and housing and urban development. She has delivered for the state, and then some: $219 million in home-state projects in 2010, which was the ninth highest amount among senators that year. The Washington watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense dubbed her the “Queen of Pork.” Murray is unapologetic about using her Appropriations seat to steer funding to her state, arguing that lawmakers, not bureaucrats, should make funding decisions. “Earmarks are how those of us who live 2,500 miles from the nation’s capital ensure projects critical to our state are funded,” she said.
Murray agreed in November 2010 to chair the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Senate Democrats’ campaign recruiting and fundraising arm, for the 2012 election. Several of her colleagues had reportedly turned down the post, prompting Majority Leader Harry Reid and others to persuade her that she was in the best position to succeed in the job. The assignment was a daunting one: Twenty-three Democratic senators face re-election in 2012. But even her political opponents predicted that she would not be outworked. “She’s a mechanic, not a visionary. But she’s really good at it,” said Chris Vance, a former chairman of Washington’s Republican Party. “And people have underestimated her for their entire career and they’ve always been wrong. She’s a tremendous politician in the old-school, old-fashioned model.”
Murray brought experience to the DSCC post, having held the job in the 2002 election cycle. She nearly doubled the committee’s fundraising, bringing in $158 million during the cycle, and her recruiting efforts were mostly successful. But the results were disappointing, to say the least. Democrats lost more seats than they won that year, and they lost their Senate majority. Still, Murray’s efforts got high marks. In 2004, Reid appointed Murray assistant floor leader, and after Democrats won back the majority in 2006, her colleagues elected her Democratic Conference Secretary, the fourth-ranking position in the leadership.
Murray also assumed the helm of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee in 2011. She has long been one of the most persistent advocates for veterans’ funding. She said in January 2011 that the new House Republican majority’s “slash everything motive” did not recognize the many needs of veterans. “We cannot say, ‘Gee, sorry,’ to them,’’ she told The Associated Press. “We have to say, ‘Our country is there for you.’ ’’ She has sponsored bills for more benefits for National Guard and Reserve troops called up to active duty, and she successfully fought for more health care funding for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Republicans initially rejected her attempt to add $2 billion for veterans’ health care, but relented and added $1.5 billion after it was revealed that the VA was using dated cost estimates and expected a shortfall.
In her first years, Murray was criticized as too staff reliant, but she grew into the role of senator. She immersed herself in Washington state issues, becoming one of the Senate’s staunchest proponents of normal trade relations with China, a position strongly backed by Boeing. Murray also has worked to remove restrictions on abortion rights and has prevailed in the Senate on legislation allowing abortions in military hospitals. With then-Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, she waged a fight with the Bush administration regarding the approval of over-the-counter sales of the Plan B contraceptive.
On defense issues, Murray voted in 2002 against using force in Iraq and was a vociferous critic of the Bush administration’s war policy, accusing the administration of failing to plan for the full cost of the war. She has backed the Obama administration on Afghanistan. And like other Washington lawmakers, she worked diligently to ensure that Boeing won its protracted battle against a foreign competitor in 2011 for the right to build the next generation of Air Force aerial refueling tankers.
Murray has won re-election three times by steadily diminishing margins. In 1998, she was challenged by U.S. Rep. Linda Smith, a Republican and a strong opponent of abortion and free trade deals. Murray raised far more money than Smith and won 58%-42%. In 2004, she faced Republican George Nethercutt, another House member, who in 1994 earned a reputation as a giant killer by defeating Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley. But the former mom in tennis shoes had become a hardball fundraiser: An aide put out the word to lobbyists that the senator would regard contributions to Nethercutt as hostile, even if contributors gave to her too. Murray raised $11.5 million, much more than Nethercutt’s $7.7 million. Nethercutt campaigned vigorously, and big-name Republicans came in for him. In September, Nethercutt ran an ad featuring Murray’s controversial 2002 comments on Osama bin Laden’s good works. But the ad did not seem to move votes. On Election Day, Murray won 55%-43%. It was almost as if the election had been held in two states: Nethercutt carried every county east of the Cascades, and Murray carried all but two counties to the west.
Republicans initially considered Murray vulnerable in 2010. They landed a top-tier recruit in former state Sen. Dino Rossi, a fiscal conservative who had twice run impressive but losing campaigns against Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire. He easily captured the nomination to challenge Murray. He criticized her involvement in shaping the Democratic agenda. But Murray did not back down from her record and said Rossi would bankrupt the nation by giving tax breaks to the wealthy. She got a substantial boost from Boeing, whose machinists’ union called her re-election its top priority.
Murray maintained a small lead in polls until October, when Rossi took the lead in two of them. The National Republican Senatorial Committee and outside conservative groups poured millions into the race on his behalf. But Murray also got help at campaign stops from Vice President Joe Biden and First Lady Michelle Obama, and she managed to pull out a 52%-48% victory. Although Republicans won the female vote nationally, exit polls showed Murray beating Rossi among women, 56%-44%. And even though national Republicans won the senior citizens’ vote by 19 percentage points, Murray carried it by 10 points.
