By The Herald Editorial Board
Would that all political races be run by both candidates with the level of civility and attention to issues displayed by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, Democrat, and her opponent, Chris Vance, a former state Republican Party chairman.
During their meeting last month with The Herald Editorial Board and in debates, both have outlined their positions and where they disagree, but have convincingly professed a desire to serve their constituents and move the country forward and past partisan politics.
Vance, a part-time instructor at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, has served in the Legislature, the King County Council, as state GOP chairman and more recently as an adviser to state Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn.
He has been clear about his opposition to his own party’s presidential candidate and was critical of the current state party chairwoman’s fumbled excuse of Donald Trump’s boasts about sexual assaults of women.
And Vance correctly diagnoses the causes of gridlock in Washington, D.C., that have complicated the passage of budgets, threatened government shutdowns and prevented needed action on reducing the national debt, strengthening Social Security and Medicare and reforming immigration. In doing so, he takes aim as much at the intransigence in his own party as that demonstrated by Democrats.
But Vance’s calls that both parties must do more to work across the aisle would carry more weight if he were running against one of those more to blame for partisan rancor, such as Nevada’s Democratic Sen. Harry Reid or Kentucky’s Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell.
Unfortunately for Vance, his lot was to run against Murray.
Sen. Patty Murray, long before election season, has proved her drive and skill in working with Democrats and Republicans to get things done. Most notably that includes her talks with current House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, to forge a budget deal in 2013 and avert a government shutdown, and negotiate with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, to craft major reforms to federal education law by replacing No Child Left Behind with the Every Student Succeeds Act.
Even so, Vance faults Murray and the rest of Congress for failing to secure a “Grand Bargain” that would have addressed the national debt along with passing a budget. But that’s a high bar that downplays what Murray and her Republican partners accomplished and what could follow in coming sessions because of those past cooperative efforts.
Murray, a senior member of the Senate’s Veterans Affairs and Appropriations Committee, has earned the respect and trust of veterans and their families by addressing their needs, including increased funding for veterans’ health care for post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, improved suicide prevention measures at the Veterans Administration, establishment of a Vet Center in Everett and a community clinic in Mount Vernon, and most recently, winning coverage of in-vitro fertilization services for injured veterans and their families.
Murray worked with others in the state’s Congressional delegation last year to win renewal of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the 50-year-old program established by Everett’s Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson, that uses oil and gas royalties to fund acquisition and development of parks and conservation land.
Murray and others in the state delegation worked for renewal of the Export-Import Bank, the federal agency that guarantees loans between American manufacturers and foreign buyers, promoting the exports from small local companies on up to Boeing and helps preserve those jobs. Anti-trade Republicans had worked to scuttle the bank.
And it took longer than it should have, but Murray, the ranking member of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was one of the loudest and most persistent voices seeking $1.1 billion in funding for Zika virus research and prevention work. To win passage, Murray had to mount opposition to Republicans who had blocked Zika funding in order to prevent any of the funding from going to Planned Parenthood and other providers of women’s health care for a disease that can be sexually transmitted.
As open as she is to working with Republicans, those fights showed Murray will not hesitate to stand on principle.
We appreciate that Vance represents a return for the moderate wing of the state Republican Party in the tradition of Dan Evans and Ralph Munro. But in Sen. Patty Murray, Washington state has had for four terms an effective voice for its residents and for bipartisan action in Congress.
Murray deserves voters’ support for a fifth term.
Correction: An earlier version of this editorial misidentifed the state that Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid represents.
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