Sen. Patty Murray: Trump nominees should release tax returns

Promising to work with Donald Trump when it’s good for Washington and fight when she thinks one of his proposals isn’t, Sen. Patty Murray said his nominees should be willing to show Congress their tax returns to show they don’t have any conflicts of interest.

“If they have no shady business dealings … they should be happy to have us take a look,” she said at a news conference last week.

The state’s senior senator and the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Murray said she was deeply concerned about some of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promises, like repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act or revamping foreign trade policies.

“He said he’s going to get a better (trade) deal. I have no idea if he can,” Murray said in an interview with The Spokesman-Review. But she’ll assess that in terms of its effect on Washington, where about one job in five is dependent on foreign trade.

She’s also worried about some topics that never seemed to come up on the campaign trail, such as the future of the Energy Department or how the new administration will deal with Washington and other states that have some form of legalized marijuana.

In the interview, Murray went through a list of regional topics that usually come up when the nation gets a new president. Washington has one of the higher concentrations of military installations in the country, so Trump’s promises to invest more in defense could be good for the state.

“It completely depends on how he does it,” she said. “Will he close bases so he has the money to do it?”

But there’s also a danger of getting U.S. forces involved in more overseas conflicts. “I don’t think the people who voted for Trump expect him to send us to war.”

At the news conference, Murray was among Senate Democrats calling for all Cabinet nominees to release their past three years of tax returns to make sure they don’t have any conflicts of interest. She called the nominees announced so far a “gold-plated and mahogany Trump-style Cabinet.”

“He seems to be draining the swamp by filling it with bigger swamp creatures,” she quipped.

Long active in improving veterans services, Murray said she’s waiting to see who Trump nominates to head the Veterans Affairs Department. Talk by some Republicans of privatizing the VA, or instituting a voucher system for medical care, is “deeply concerning to veterans,” she said.

Another key appointment for the Northwest in the Trump Cabinet will be the Energy Department secretary, a position that hasn’t been mentioned yet and is sometimes mentioned by Republicans as a department the federal government should close.

“It’s a place some people think you can just put a friend in there. But it’s a tough job,” Murray said. The department is also in charge of the multibillion-dollar cleanup of decades of Cold War nuclear waste on the Hanford Reservation, which as far as she can tell hasn’t been addressed by the president-elect.

It’s also the department that contains the Bonneville Power Administration, which supplies low-cost power to many Northwest communities from the federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

“I don’t think he has a clue” about the BPA, Murray said.

As the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee overseeing health programs, Murray said she plans to have tough questions for Trump’s nominee for the Department of Health and Human Services, Georgia Rep. Tom Price, who will oversee any changes to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Price is a longtime foe of the program. Trump recently has backed away from promises to repeal the program, saying instead he wants to keep some elements of it.

“I don’t know how they’re going to do that. (Price) will be asked an incredible amount of questions about it,” she said.

The details of any replacement plan will be particularly important for Washington and other states that agreed to expand Medicaid for thousands of residents with federal money and set up their own systems for individuals and businesses to shop for health care plans.

Although not on the Judiciary Committee that will interview Sen. Jeff Sessions, the attorney general nominee, Murray said she will have some questions for him when he meets with Senate leadership, as is customary for most appointees.

The two sat next to each other when Murray was the chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee. She wants to ask him about his plans to protect voting rights and reproductive rights for Americans. There’s also an important issue for Washington, which has legalized marijuana and now has a regulated system.

“He has made some incredibly strong statements against any of our states that has passed marijuana laws,” she said.

Although some Senate committees have authority to require nominees to submit tax returns, Democrats will have to get Republican support to expand the requirement for Price, Sessions and many other positions. Murray insists no one should object to the kind of increased transparency voters seem to be calling for.

On Friday, however, the Trump transition team balked at the move for all Cabinet nominees to submit tax returns. A memo reported by the Associated Press called it a “public relations stunt with zero precedent designed to arm opposition researchers.”

Murray and other Senate Democrats responded that the tax returns would not be made public or used for political purposes.

“When someone argues against a bipartisan tradition of transparency like this one, the question is, what is there to hide?” they said in a prepared statement.