OLYMPIA, Wash. — Childcare subsidies are what got U.S. Senator Patty Murray into politics more than 40 years ago.
”When I was fighting for it, it was sort of the unnamed, don’t talk about it issue. It was the woman’s issue. It was don’t tell anybody you can’t find childcare because you might not get a job,” said Murray, D-Washington, during her annual visit to the state legislature in Olympia.
Murray said she still fights for increased funding for childcare, one of the issues that got her elected to the state senate in 1988.
Four years later, Washington voters sent her to the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C.
Murray said the continued expansion of childcare subsidies and food assistance for infants and children are her top priorities in the nation’s capital.
Once a year, Murray said she likes to visit the state Capitol in Olympia to see what legislators are working on and what they want from the federal government.
“This is where I started my career,” said Murray. “I know the energy, the passion, is really critical."
Watch the full one-on-one interview:
Another issue Murray knows is important to the state: the number of robberies and break-ins at cannabis stores.
For years, Murray said she has worked on a bill to get cash out of pot shops, a move that requires federal banking law changes.
But that bill has stalled, with several other issues in Congress — most notably, the recent attempt at strengthening security along the nation’s southern border.
”All of a sudden we found out at the end Republicans didn’t want to solve the border crisis,” said Murray. “They just wanted a political issue in November. How do I know that? Trump told us; he said to the Republicans, ‘Don’t you vote for this, I want to campaign on it.’”
It’s an election year, not for Murray, but for her seatmate Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, and for the nation's president.
In an report filed earlier this month, federal special counsel Robert Hur described President Joe Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory.”
Does Murray think Biden has the strength needed for another campaign and four more years in office?
“I find it astonishing people are questioning that,” said Murray, who said she met with the president two weeks ago. ”He is absolutely on top of it. I’ll tell you what is most important to me, President Biden speaks from his heart and he is compassionate and he cares about people and when he fights for something it’s because he relies on those basic values. It’s just who he is, versus the other guy, who is running for president for himself.”