Although physically small, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, has become a power forward in the U.S.Congress. The onetime Shoreline preschool teacher has chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. She is part of her party’s leadership.
At the same time, however, she seemed to settle into the protective cocoon of a Capitol Hill veteran, for whom schedules are prepared weeks in advance, appreciative audiences are selected, and omnipresent handlers hover nearby.
The Trump presidency, while a disaster for America, is bringing out the best in Murray. She grilled Bobby Kennedy, Jr. at his cabinet confirmation hearing. She has redoubled a commitment to women’s health care that began with her first Senate speech 32 years ago. She is pointing out that Trump and Musk neither knows nor cares about working families.
A fighter Murry is, but what of the rest of our delegation in the other Washington? Ten of its twelve members are Democrats in a GOP-controlled Congress. Eight are women during a resurgence of misogyny.
The Washington delegation features all strands of opinion save for MAGA Republicans. Just among the Democrats, the spectrum ranges from Rep. Pramila Jayapal of the leftish Congressional Progressive Caucus to “blue dog” moderate Rep.Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez.
President Trump is making diversity in America a secular sin. If so, here is a selection of sinners:
The Ridge Walker: A adult in the Senate, Maria Cantwell has managed to do good even with Republicans running the place. She secured permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and worked with an anti-Trump Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to get construction underway on new polar icebreakers. She did much better chairing the Senate Commerce Committee, securing passage of the Chips Act designed to revive America’s semi-conductor industry.
She is angry at Trump but selectively picking her fights. Atop her list, Trump and Musk taking a meat axe to the National Oceanic and Atmosphetic Admospheric Administration. It was Cantwell who fought successfully to close a big hole in radar weather coverage of Western Washington. Trump is already taking aim at the Chips Act, which is generating jobs and investment.
Hey, hey, Ho ho: Pramila Jayapal, D-Seattle, is on the go. Her solution to Trumpism is to raise hell. Use such issues as Medicare for All to rouse the party base. Champion the cause of immigrants, of which she is one. Pit one dynamic movement against another.
Common Ground: Gluesenkamp-Perez has already beaten a Trump surrogate in the form of conspiracy-spinner Joe Kent. She’s done it by cultivating needs of a conservative district. She’s worked the Farm Bill, cosponsored with Republicans, legislation to let farmers service their own equipment. She voted for a Republican drill-baby-drill energy bill, and to censure a fellow Democrat who interrupted Trump’s speech to Congress.
Money to the Middle: The rich in America enjoy many tax breaks. One of the few to benefit low and middle-income American families is the Earned Income Tax Credit, for which Rep. Suzan DelBene is a chief defender in Congress. She is also chair of the Democratic Congressional Caucus.
East Side-West Side: Rep. Kim Schrier, a Democrat and pediatrician, has secured a constituency previously held by Republicans for 36 years. She has done it by attending to needs of a district that straddles the Cascades. Herself a diabetic, Schrier fought and secured a cap on Insulin costs to seniors, and she wants to extend it to everyone. She has championed the Yakima Basin Project with its promise of holding and securing more water for both agriculture and salmon.
Missing in action: Rep. Dan Newhouse represents a Central Washington district about to be brutalized by Trump. Deep cuts are in store for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and cleanup of radioactive waste at Hanford. The Trump regime may try to redefine high-‘level nuclear waste as low-level nuclear waste.
Having voted to impeach his fellow Republicans after the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Newhouse is lying low and voicing concern. He has been bedeviled by the MAGA right. The Tri-City Herald is urging Newhouse to speak out and do something. No sign yet the message is being heeded.
A Call to Arms: Trump has pushed to politicize the military, and Rep. Adam Smith has pushed back. Smith was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee during the first Trump term. It’s one House panel that functions with a degree of comity and cohesion, which is much needed. Trump sought to use the military domestically to quell rioting after the George Floyd murder. He wanted to celebrate Independence Day with a gaudy Red Square-like military parade. The professional military and Trump’s Secretaries of Defense successfully resisted. Trump is at it again, firing the Joint Chiefs of Staff chair and naming a Fox News host as Secretary of Defense. A big test for Congress, one of many.
This article also appears in The Cascadia Advocate.
