Dynamic Duo: Washington's Two Senators
By Joel Connelly
The United Stated celebrates its 250th birthday this year, and Donald Trump will grandly display his lack of taste. We in Washington State have another anniversary: for 25 years, one tenth of the Republic’s history, our Washington has been represented in the “other” Washington by U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, a formidable and long-lasting team.
The two can be seen together, from time to time, advocating for reproductive rights at Planned Parenthood’s digs off Madison Street. Otherwise, they go separate ways but manage to complement each other. It isn’t always so. Oregon’s U.S. Senators, the regal Mark Hatfield and vulnerable Bob Packwood, while of the same party, privately loathed each other.
Patty Murray is the state’s provider, a role once played by another six-term senator — chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the legendary Warren Magnuson. She is, for instance, a big part of the reason we don’t have a light rail system that doesn’t stub off in Tukwila. She’s also architect of the Wild Sky Wilderness in Snohomish County and Hanford Reach National Monument on a non-reservoirized Columbia River in Eastern Washington. She is chief sponsor of pending Wild Olympics legislation.
Washingtonian magazine once attached a label, “no rocket scientist,” to Murray. But the joke is on them. Murray has a knack of spotting common ground, especially on education policy. As well, folks feel comfortable with her. She has ended careers of three Republican House members. The GOP thought it had her on the run in 2022, but Murray copped 57 percent of the vote.
https://www.postalley.org/2026/03/18/dynamic-duo-washingtons-two-senators/