Patty Murray

Presidents have (very) occassionaly favored Washingtonians with prominent appointments. Our senators' replies to whether they wanted to be vice president led us to look into other Washingtonians in presidential administrations.

Today the National Abortion & Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL)'s Pro Choice America PAC endorsed Barack Obama for president, citing his pro-choice record and the tenor of his candidacy.

However, the local affiliate here in Washington decided to stay neutral. Like the national chapter they also cited the strong support of both Democratic candidates, but instead used that logic to withhold an endorsement, perhaps because of Hillary Clinton's connection to Sen. Patty Murray.

Don't expect Washington's U.S. senators to be a presidential runningmate. In a survey of the U.S. Senate's membership not already running for president on whether they'd accept an offer to be vice president, The Hill newspaper found a variety of responses to the veepstakes question. Some were accompanied by laughs, others took the question seriously.

So, how did Democrats Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray respond?

Washington's superdelegate count stands at five for Obama, five for Clinton and seven undecided. State Republican deciders may know something the Democrats don't know, since they've been campaigning against Obama, without a single mention on Clinton in recent letters. The Republican decidee is coming to town, and you can meet him for dinner for only $33,100.

Representatives Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Dave Reichert have gone kosher and sworn off the pork. Which sounds admirable but also correlates to their effectiveness rating, and will likely get them less goodwill than a couple of good projects for their districts would have. On the other side, Rep. Norm Dicks won Citizens Against Government Waste’s “April Porker of the Month” for trying to get the Air Force to buy from Boeing. What nerve!

Sen. Patty Murray is claiming that the Department of Veterans Affairs has lied about the number of attempted suicides by US military. The McClatchy news service reports that Murray has seen internal e-mails indicating some 12,000 attempts per year, as opposed to the 800 reported by the VA.

Gordon Mansfield, deputy secretary of the VA, apologized for the numbers discrepancy and told Murray and her Senate Veterans Affairs colleagues that there was no purposeful attempt to mislead. Still, Murray was skeptical.

“I used to teach preschool, and when you bring up a 3-year-old and tell them they have to stop lying, they understand the consequences,” Murray said. “The VA doesn’t. They need to stop hiding the fact this war is costing us in so many ways. They can be walking time bombs for decades,” Murray said. “I hope everyone in the VA understands this.”

More importantly, does it matter? Looking at our leaders, the experience trope has been inconsistent at best.

On the national level, touting her experience hasn’t worked at all for Hillary Clinton, and experience was not required of George W. Bush.  read more »

Washington's two U.S. Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, have followed the lead of their stateside Democratic colleagues by calling on the NBA to postpone a vote on whether or not the Seattle Sonics are allowed to move to Oklahoma City at Friday's NBA owner's meeting.

$268,294,892: That’s total value of the 269 pork barrel projects secured from the federal government by Washington’s Congressional delegation, according to the 2008 Pig Book.

It's a small number compared to the $17.2 billion national total that Citizens Against Government Waste found in FY 2008’s 12 appropriation bills.

With $41.48 of pork per capita, Washington ranks 25th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.