Sen. Murray Unsure About New Senate Job

Sen. Patty Murray can’t decide whether her new job on the Senate Ethics Committee is a punishment or a golden opportunity.

“Nobody likes to be on the Ethics Committee,” Murray, D-Wash., said this week after the appointment was announced. “It takes up a lot of time, and you have to judge your peers.”

The six-member panel, which also includes Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, receives complaints and investigates allegations of improper conduct by senators.

But the committee also could give the first-term senator a forum in which to continue her legislative fight against sexual harassment.

While in the state senate, Murray helped to introduce a sexual harassment complaints procedure. She ran for the U.S. Senate in 1992 partly out of disgust over the handling of the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

“That Judiciary Committee had really shown the nation what the Senate was made up of, and there were no women in there,” Murray said.

Last summer she urged the Ethics Committee to hold public hearings into allegations of sexual misconduct by then-Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore.

But Murray said she has no plans to try and change the way the committee runs.

Murray also serves on the Senate Appropriations, Banking, Budget and Veterans’ Affairs committees.