Senator Patricia “Patty” Murray (shown) of Washington State is a progressive Democrat seeking reelection to a fifth term in the U.S. Senate. Her involvement in politics began in the 1980s, when she successfully organized and led a coalition of 13,000 parents to prevent budget cuts to a local preschool program. This noble act earned her the admiration of her community, which went on to elect her to the local school board. In an upset election in 1988, Murray defeated two-term incumbent Republican State Senator Bill Kiskaddon of the state’s First District.

Continuing her rise to power, Murray was then elected to the U.S. Senate on the coattails of Bill Clinton’s electoral landslide defeat of incumbent President George H.W. Bush. Although supportive of the agendas of Presidents Clinton and Barack Obama, Senator Murray has also garnered a favorable reputation among radical far-left progressives by bringing many of their key issues to the forefront.

Senator Murray’s cumulative score on The New American’s “Freedom Index,” which rates the votes of congressmen on key legislative issues based on a strict interpretation of the Constitution, is a low 10 percent. Her record in the Senate, as further examined below, is one that blurs the lines between traditional run-of-the-mill mainstream liberal Democrats and far-left radical progressives. Socialist Alternative, a radical Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyite political party, notes in a 2015 article on their website, “The labor movement and progressive activists made major efforts to elect Washington State Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.”

Among those “progressive activists,” who made “major efforts” to reelect Murray in 2010 was Tim Wheeler, a longtime staff writer and national political correspondent for the Communist Party USA’s (CPUSA) newspaper People’s World. In a 2010 article published by People’s World, featuring a photo of himself holding a handmade sign that read “HONK if you ♥ PATTY!” Wheeler wrote, “I was asked to coordinate street-corner ‘waves’ for Murray here in my hometown.” He further admitted, “My wife Joyce and I spent one afternoon canvassing for Murray up on Bell Hill.” This apparent endorsement from the national political correspondent for the Communist Party USA’s newspaper is not surprising, considering her ties to the Communist Party. The office of Senator Murray did not reply to The New American’s inquiry about whether or not she disavowed the endorsement or any support from the CPUSA and People’s World.

Marxist Murray

As renowned anti-communist researcher and author Trevor Loudon notes in his book The Enemies Within, “Patty Murray has a pattern of association with the Washington State Communist Party USA (CPUSA).” The November 7, 1992 issue of the CPUSA’s then-People’s Weekly World celebrated Patty Murray’s win to the U.S. Senate by running a photo of her, among other elected female Democrats to Congress, on the front cover beneath the headline “Women win!”

Page 10 of the subsequent November 14, 1992 issue of People’s Weekly World featured an article entitled “Record Voter Turnout Defeats Right-wing in Washington State,” which favorably noted how Murray “found widespread support for her pro-working families agenda.” The article further stated that her campaign “emphasized education, health care, and the protection of the ‘middle class’ from economic ruin.”

At the Coalition of Labor Union Women’s (CLUW) 1997 conference in Seattle, Senator Murray was a featured speaker, along with Richard Trumka and Linda Chavez-Thompson of the AFL-CIO; Nancy Riche, the executive vice president of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC); and Congressman Jim McDermott (D-Wash.). As one of six constituency groups of the AFL-CIO, CLUW serves as a nationwide front for both the CPUSA and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). One of CLUW’s co-founders, Gloria Steinem, is currently an honorary chair of the DSA.

On September 26, 2001, Gail Ryall, the chairwoman of the Sacramento Communist Club and a member of the Northern California CPUSA Regional Board, gave a speech at the CPUSA’s Women’s Equality Conference praising the work of CLUW and also identifying herself as belonging to one of its chapters. CLUW’s ties to the CPUSA are even stronger in Washington State, where CPUSA members Irene Hull and Lonnie Nelson “founded and ran the Puget Sound branch of CLUW for many years,” according to Loudon.

In 2003, Senator Murray again spoke at CLUW’s conference in Seattle. Guests and delegates to the 2003 conference were welcomed by longtime CPUSA ally Pat Stell. In her conference speech, Murray “pointed to the convention’s theme ‘Vision, Voices, Votes,’ as the same plan of attack that led to victory recently in stopping the Bush administration’s attack on overtime pay,” Loudon writes. “We need to give people the vision, make their voices heard, and count the votes,” Murray told the CLUW delegates.

On May 7, 2015, John Bachtell, the national chairman of the CPUSA, wrote an article published in People’s World about the importance of voting in the 2016 election. In the article, Bachtell noted the Communist Party’s pressure-from-below influence on Senator Murray:

Here’s another example of how these movements affect politics: After the April 15 national strike for $15, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., introduced legislation to raise the national minimum wage to $12 an hour (still not enough) and to end the tipping system for restaurant workers.

In addition to her partially giving in to Communist Party demands, Senator Murray was also favorably mentioned by People’s World for introducing the Youth Jobs Act of 2010 (S. 2929), which would have provided $1.5 billion through the Workforce Investment Act to expand the government youth employment programs created by the 2009 stimulus. The CPUSA favors these measures in order to advance their goal that everyone have a “right” to a “living wage” — meaning a guaranteed annual income compliments of beleaguered taxpayers whose own budgets may be stretched to the brink to support the burgeoning welfare state.

On the foreign policy front, like many in communist circles, Murray favors significant arms reductions and the nuclear disarmament of the United States. On March 28, 2016, Murray, along with Senators Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), wrote a letter to President Obama urging him to “redouble efforts” to cut the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In the letter, the senators expressed their support to “renew nuclear arms talks ahead of the expiration of New START.”

Previously, on January 26, 1996, Senator Murray voted to ratify the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II) with Russia, which called for reducing the total number of nuclear warheads to 3,500 for each country, banning MIRV (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle) land-based missiles, and reducing the number of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) by 2003. This vote occurred after then-President Bill Clinton vetoed a bill for deploying a ballistic missile defense system. At the time, Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) offered the following warning about ratifying START II:

Yes, we are getting the Russians down to 3,500, if they comply.... My simple proposition is this: Missile defense should be our highest national security priority. If the President believes that our highest priority must be sacrificed to gain Russia’s approval of START II, I say it is too high a price to pay.

Murray’s steadfast support for U.S. nuclear disarmament — while continually giving Russia, which since the Soviet era has had a penchant for not upholding its end of the bargain, the benefit of the doubt — has earned her the continued support of a radical leftist and former Soviet front organization. The Council for a Livable World endorsed Murray, in both her 2010 and 2016 reelection campaigns.

As previously reported in The New American, Hungarian nuclear physicist and longtime ardent Soviet supporter Leó Szilárd founded the Council for a Livable World in 1962. The CLW typically endorses progressive Democrats who agree with their disarmament objectives. The council’s 2010 endorsement of Murray read in part:

Patty Murray has made a difference, particularly on arms control, nuclear disarmament and foreign policy. In 2002, Murray was one of 23 Senators to vote against the President’s request for authority to take military action in Iraq.... In key Senate votes, she supported amendments to bring U.S. troops out of Iraq, opposed funding for a new generation of nuclear weapons and voted against amendments to increase national missile defense funding.

Her opposition to the Iraq War should not be mistaken for an adherence to Jeffersonian principles of nonintervention. During a debate in the 2004 U.S. Senate election in Washington State, Murray offered the following explanation for voting against the war: “I voted against the resolution to go to war in Iraq because we did not have a clear mission, we didn’t have a clear exit strategy, we were not honest with the American public about the costs — both in lives and in dollars.”

Despite her opposition to the war, on October 17, 2003 Murray voted yes on the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan Security and Reconstruction Act (S. 1689), which would appropriate $86.5 billion in supplemental spending for overseas military operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan for fiscal 2004. Included in the $86.5 billion was a $10.3 billion grant to rebuild war-torn Iraq.

Party Over Principle

As a loyal Democrat, Senator Murray often puts her party politics ahead of the constitutional principles that she swore an oath to uphold. In the 1990s, Murray was a steadfast supporter of President Bill Clinton’s military interventionism in former Yugoslavia.

Murray voted against ending the arms embargo on Bosnia, voted yes on a Senate concurrent resolution authorizing President Clinton to conduct air and missile strikes against Kosovo, and voted yes on a joint resolution authorizing “the President to use all necessary force and other means, in concert with U.S. allies, to accomplish U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) objectives in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).”

Her support for these interventions under Bill Clinton raises the question whether she would support new military interventions under a Hillary Clinton presidency, should they both win their respective races in November. Murray’s commitment to Hillary is evidenced by her role as a superdelegate for Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention.

Unlike regular delegates, superdelegates are not bound to the will of the voters. Instead they vote according to their personal preference. In Murray’s home state of Washington, for example, Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in a landslide at the state’s Democratic caucus, receiving 72.7 percent of the vote, whereas Hillary received a lackluster 27.1 percent. Despite Democratic voters’ overwhelming selection of Sanders, Murray marched lockstep to the tune of the Democratic Party establishment in her endorsement of Hillary.

Like the Democratic presidential nominee, Murray is also a stalwart supporter of abortion, so much so that she was the first candidate in the 2016 election to receive an endorsement from Planned Parenthood Action Fund, the political arm of Planned Parenthood. On May 8, 2015, Planned Parenthood Action Fund published a press release that read in part, “Planned Parenthood Action Fund made its first endorsement of the 2016 cycle today, vowing to help re-elect women’s health champion Patty Murray to the U.S. Senate.”

Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, was quoted in the press release as saying, “Nobody is more deserving of our endorsement than Senator Patty Murray, a true champion for women and families and fierce advocate for the one-in-five women that rely on Planned Parenthood health centers at some point in their lifetime.” Richards is correct that “nobody is more deserving” of Planned Parenthood’s endorsement than Murray, because she boasts a 100 percent on Planned Parenthood’s voting score card, which includes of plethora of anti-life legislation that she has voted for and supported.

Another instance of her devotion to Democratic Party objectives over the Constitution is her stance on the Second Amendment, which plainly reads, “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Infringing on that right, Murray voted for the onerous 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB), which prohibited the manufacture, sale, transfer, or import of a host of semiautomatic firearms based primarily on their cosmetic features. Although the ban expired in 2004, which was soon followed by a decrease in reported gun violence in the United States, Murray has sought to make the ban permanent and expand the number and type of firearms that would be prohibited.

On April 17, 2013, Senator Murray voted for an amendment (S.Amdt. 711) offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to the proposed “gun-control” Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act (S. 649) that would implement a new and even more far-reaching AWB than the one previously expired.

As Tim Brown, author and editor at FreedomOutpost.com, GunsInTheNews.com, and TheWashingtonStandard.com, wrote in a 2013 article entitled “Dianne Feinstein’s Assault Weapons Ban Defeated,” Feinstein’s AWB would “have banned the sale of 157 different semi-automatic weapons, including handguns and even shotguns, along with high capacity magazines.” Brown continued, “This bill was similar but even more expansive than her previous gun ban bill that was passed in 1994 and signed into law by Bill Clinton.”

Trade Traitor

A committed globalist, Senator Murray has voted for virtually every major sovereignty-killing “free trade” scheme during her tenure in the Senate. Murray voted to implement every major multilateral trade scheme, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993; the Andean Trade Preference Act, extending “free trade” to Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador in 2002; and the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005; as well as for establishing permanent normal trade relations with Communist China in 2000 and for establishing normal trade relations with Communist Vietnam in 2001.

Each one of these trade schemes is not free trade in the classical sense, which historically meant the absence of government intervention, but rather regulated trade schemes that transfer aspects of American sovereignty to larger multilateral bodies in order to facilitate the regional government, much like the Common Market that preceded the European Union. These agreements are typically sold to the American people on the false promise that they will create new jobs and improve the economy. For example, as previously reported in The New American, the year prior to NAFTA’s implementation, the United States had a $1.66 billion trade surplus with Mexico, but by 1995, the first full year after NAFTA was enacted, the United States had a $15.8 billion deficit with Mexico. Since its implementation, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico has only escalated, soaring to $24.5 billion in 2000, $49.8 billion in 2005, and $58.3 billion in 2015. Millions of previously American jobs have been outsourced to Mexico as a result of NAFTA, and new NAFTA courts have been established superseding domestic U.S. courts, including even the Supreme Court.

Despite this dismal record, Senator Murray stands with President Obama on implementing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In a speech delivered at the Washington Council on International Trade on November 10, 2014, Murray said of the TPP:

Approximately one-third of Washington exports already go to countries involved in the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, which could eventually knock down barriers to many important, growing markets across the globe. We need to closely examine and consider any agreement that could reduce market barriers to Washington-made goods and Washington-grown products, and offer Washington companies opportunities for expansion.

Negotiated among 12 Pacific Rim countries (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam), the TPP is an interim step toward the much-broader Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific, which would include all 21 member states of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, among which are Communist China and Russia.

Furthermore, chapter 27 of the TPP agreement, entitled “Administrative and Institutional Provisions,” establishes and outlines the functions of a governing executive body, known as the TPP Commission, akin to the governing European Commission of the EU. The commission, which would be made up of unelected representatives from each of the participating nations, would have the power to alter the agreement in the future and add new member states without the consent of Congress or the parliaments of the already-participating countries. As a result, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has described the TPP as a “living agreement” and a “nascent European Union.”

Not only does Murray put her party ahead of constitutional principles and the people, but her stance on trade undermines American national sovereignty and independence. With a Marxist-leaning, staunchly Democrat, full-fledged globalist record such as hers, it is astonishing that Senator Patty Murray was elected to the Senate for four consecutive terms and is now running for a fifth term. Murray’s record highlights the importance and need for further education about the Constitution and the issues in order to keep our nation’s lawmakers accountable to the voters and the Constitution they swear to uphold.

Photo of Sen. Patty Murray: AP Images