Power swings to Sen. Patty Murray

A few days after the Nov. 7 election, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray was approached by a woman at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The woman shook Murray's hand and said, "Congratulations, senator. For all of us."

That's when the shock of the elections putting Democrats back in control of Congress finally sunk in.

"It was an overwhelming feeling of 'Wow!' " Murray said. "The sun was shining again. There was hope and opportunity."

For most of her 14 years in the Senate, Murray has been waiting for a chance to exercise power. Now she has a lot of it.

Murray has just been named secretary of the Democratic caucus, a nebulous title that makes her part of the Senate Democrats' leadership quartet.

More important, Murray is poised to become chairwoman of the Appropriations subcommittee for transportation and other areas.

That puts the third-term senator in a position to pursue several major priorities for the state: $750 million for Sound Transit's "University Link" extension; $690 million for cleanup at the Hanford nuclear reservation; money for a joint port-security operations center for Seattle and Tacoma. She also wants more for veterans programs, including money for a new clinic in Whatcom County.

Before the election recess in late September, Murray indicated she was frustrated about the ways some of her proposals had been blocked by the Republican majority.

But since the election, the normally somber and low-key Murray has been newly energized.

"It's a new world," she said in a recent interview.

U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, a Bremerton Democrat, noted that Murray's ascension to the chairmanship of a powerful subcommittee will mean that "everybody has to talk to you. ... Every chairman has to come to you, and ask: 'Can you help me on my project?' "

"This chairmanship will give her a lot of leverage in the Senate. Patty is an activist. She will use that leverage."

Even Republican lobbyist Tony Williams, who just ran Mike McGavick's failed campaign for the U.S. Senate, said, "This is only good news for the state."

For example, he said that she can now push harder for funding for Hanford's nuclear-waste cleanup.

Murray has been active on other national issues, including watchdogging the Veterans Administration and getting the controversial Plan B contraceptive approved for over-the-counter sales.

She is also one of the Democrats' leading critics of the White House's mining-safety policies. In October she castigated the administration's recess appointment of a new mining-safety director, Richard Stickler, whom earlier in the year she had questioned repeatedly about ways to avoid mine accidents.

In a statement in October, she called President Bush's move, which bypassed the Senate approval process, "a cruel slap in the face to miners and their families."

With so many new U.S. coal operations ready to open, she intends to track Stickler's office reports on mine-safety violations and bring him back to Congress if there are more accidents.

Republicans, she said, now ignore her "at their peril."

Murray is dismissive of criticism of her and other lawmakers' attitude about spending.

Particularly under fire is the use of so-called earmarks, narrowly tailored appropriations that allow senators to skip the normal budget process for some of their favorite projects.

The Appropriations Committee is where most of the budget pork is doled out, and the transportation subcommittee is one of the biggest smokehouses. That panel approved 2,820 earmarks, worth nearly $5 billion for fiscal year 2006 alone.

Earmarks are often quietly slipped into legislation as favors among politicians. Murray has been a player in the earmark process and was dubbed "the Queen of Pork" last year by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group sharply critical of congressional spending.

Asked if she favors reforming the earmark system, as some fellow senators have proposed, Murray paused before answering.

"I think all of us believe that earmarks have to be transparent," she said of the need to identify which senator is behind each funding request.

But she is unabashed about her willingness to use earmarks for her home state.

"Earmarks are how those of us who lives 2,500 miles from the nation's Capitol ensure projects critical to our state are funded," she said. Otherwise, she said, bureaucrats in D.C. would be making all the decisions "with their own friends."

"We would get lost in the process, and I'm not going to lose," she added. "Washington state will be feet first at the table."

Steve Ellis, the director of Taxpayers for Common Sense, says Murray, a member of the Appropriations Committee since her first term in 1992, has become too ingrained with the culture of the Capitol.

"She's not the 'mom in tennis shoes' anymore," Ellis said, referring to the slogan Murray used when she first ran for the Senate.

"Nobody gets on Appropriations because they are opposed to pork; you get on there to bring on the bacon," Ellis said.

While in the minority, Murray successfully directed millions to the state, including money for Sound Transit, defense contracts, Columbia River programs and the Odyssey Maritime Discovery Center at Pier 66, a project Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., decried in 2002 as "egregious" pork.

Last year, Murray helped Sen. Ted Stevens, the senior GOP senator from Alaska, maintain funding for a pricey bridge in a remote section of Alaska — dubbed the "Bridge to Nowhere" — in return for his support on her projects, including the Seattle Art Museum Sculpture Park.

Lobbyist Steve McBee, who represents Sound Transit, says Murray also may face "too many high expectations" about how much she can deliver.

Democrats have a slim majority, and they control congressional budget committees at a time of record deficits and the costly war in Iraq.

"We have to be realistic about the deficit, the war, the limits on the transportation trust fund. We have to be smart," she said.

That hasn't stopped corporate VIPs, lobbyists and state and local officials, including Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, from visiting Murray's office for post-election homage.

Her new position as secretary to the Democratic caucus comes with few specific duties. The caucus Web site says the secretary "takes minutes."

But former GOP U.S. Rep. Jennifer Dunn, who represented Washington's 8th District, says such a post is a big asset.

"Being secretary gives her a seat at the table," when leadership plans policy, Dunn said, adding that she used a similar titular role in the House several years ago to push through better Medicaid funding for Washington state.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the new majority whip, said Murray was the leaders' first choice for the post. He cited Murray for being an early and lone voice warning that the Veterans Administration had woefully underestimated its budgets needs.

After the V.A. acknowledged the shortfall, Durbin said Murray got to say "I told you so."

"People — senators and the administration — remember that," he said.

Initially elected during the big Democratic sweep of 1992, Murray's party was knocked out of the majority after just two years.

In 2001, she became the transportation appropriations subcommittee chairwoman, when the Democrats briefly landed in the majority. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, most funding matters took a back seat to beefing up homeland security and defense spending.

Now, she is poised for a bigger role.

"I can't wait for January," she said.

Medill News Service reporter Chris Borowski contributed to this report. Alicia Mundy: 202-662-7457 or amundy@seattletimes.com