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2009 has truly been a remarkable year.

It began with the history-making inauguration of our new President, Barack Obama. It continued with many key legislative achievements: the Lilly Ledbetter Act to require equal pay for equal work, the swearing in of the first Latino woman as a Supreme Court Justice, a recovery package that is already making a difference in getting our residents back to work, and the passage of bills to crack down on hate crimes, end predatory lending practices by credit card companies, and provide our women veterans with the resources and care they need.

And on Christmas Eve, with the memory and legacy of Senator Ted Kennedy with us in the chamber, the Senate passed an historic health care reform bill which will lower costs, put personal choices back in the hands of patients and their doctors, and ensure that no one in the greatest country on earth is ever denied access to critical health care services because of how much it costs. I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish together, and am confident that Congress will send the bill to President Obama’s desk early in the New Year.

Yet even with these many accomplishments, millions of Americans are still hurting. There’s still so much work to do — next year and in the years to come.

It has always been a great honor to represent you in the United States Senate, and I look forward to continuing to stand up for the priorities important to you and our state when Congress returns to work next month. In 2010, there will be many challenges to overcome as we continue our work to pass meaningful health care legislation, focus on job creation, reform our financial and banking systems, and tackle the important issue of climate change. And as always, I will focus on making sure our veterans and their families have access to the care and services they have been promised.

Your support throughout this past year has meant so much to me. Thank you.

I wish you and your loved ones a safe and happy New Year!

This morning, I voted in favor of a landmark health care reform bill on the Senate floor — the culmination of months of tireless work by tens of thousands of people in Washington, D.C. and all across the country.

As I return home to Washington state to spend some long-awaited quality time with my family, I know I’ve done all I can to give a meaningful Christmas gift to the uninsured, the under-insured, and the countless families and small businesses that needed this critical reform. I’m confident that Congress will work swiftly to send the final bill to President Obama’s desk early in the New Year.

But none of this would have been possible without your help.

Thank you so much for all your support. Whether you’ve signed one of my petitions, contributed to our campaign, or became my supporter on Facebook, I feel so blessed to have your support as I work as hard as I can to represent you in the Senate.

I hope that, during the hustle and bustle of the holidays, we’ll all find time to reflect on the many blessings we’ve received this past year — our family, our friends, and simply being Americans. I also hope we’ll each pray for our brave men and women in uniform, separated from their families this holiday season, and remember those who are less fortunate than we are.

So, from the Murray family to yours — have a wonderful holiday season.

I was proud to go to the Senate floor early this morning to cast an historic vote in favor of reforming our nation’s health care system.

Does this bill include everything all of us wanted? Of course not. But it is a very good step forward, and will begin to cure the ailments of a system that has been broken for a long time.

I have long been a supporter of the public option and I too am disappointed it’s not in the Senate version, but we can’t lose sight of the important progress that’s made in this bill.

It meets the goals of increasing competition, lowering costs and increasing choice for all Americans.

Because of this bill, the insurance industry will no longer be able to deny you coverage based on a pre-existing condition. Because of this bill, your insurance company can’t drop you when you get sick. Because of this bill, women will no longer be charged 48 percent more for the same coverage as men. Because of this bill, there will actually be affordable options out there for every single American — which means no man woman or child in the greatest country on earth will be without health care.

Those are major steps forward for our nation and for the millions of Americans who literally have no coverage right now.

We can’t lose sight of this important progress.

Thanks to the dogged determination of progressives in Washington state and across the country, the Republicans were not able to target these important provisions.

I truly believe that the reforms included in this bill will put important health care decisions back into the hands of patients and their doctors and will finally force insurance companies to compete for the business of the American people. I am proud of the step we have taken today, but there is still much work to be done. The passage of the Senate bill is another beginning.

I will continue to tell the stories of Washington residents as we work to combine the House and Senate versions to send the President a bill that will finally begin to bring the change that America’s families and businesses need and deserve.

By Patty Murray
Seattle Times Op-Ed

In a Jan. 30 editorial, “A yardstick of goals to size up health reform,” this editorial page professed, “Real reform is difficult because it requires fundamental change in one-seventh of the U.S. economy. It will prove even more formidable as the health industry grows. The system is in trouble now, and it won’t cure itself by delay.”

The year was 1994.

But Sunday, in the editorial “President Obama, Congress should set health-care reform aside,” delay is exactly what this page recommends.

What’s changed in 16 years?

Health care now makes up one-sixth of our gross domestic product. Premiums have more than doubled and are rising five times faster than wages. Medicare will go bankrupt by 2017. About 14,000 Americans lose coverage daily, including nearly 400 Washington state residents. And 51 million have no coverage at all.

That’s no recipe for delay. It’s a call to action.

Action is exactly what’s happening in the U.S. Senate.

As this editorial page declared “the timing is all wrong,” the Senate cleared a major hurdle that puts us on track to pass health-insurance-reform legislation by Christmas.

As this page called on Congress to forget health reform and instead help small businesses, it was hard to forget the largest private insurer in our state recently hiked rates by an average of 17 percent, with some small businesses reporting increases of up to 40 percent.

And as this page rightfully bemoaned the federal deficit, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office declared that the Senate bill will reduce the deficit by $132 billion.

I have received more than 10,000 letters and e-mails from Washington residents sharing their health-care stories.

Many people I hear from have health insurance and like their doctors, but find it harder to get the treatment they need because insurance companies won’t approve it. Or their premiums are getting so high they don’t know if they can keep paying. Or they have been dropped by their carrier because they got sick or had a pre-existing condition.

These rising costs are hitting families and small businesses hard.

I’ve also watched day after day as Republicans have made outrageous claims, delayed votes and turned a serious debate into a sideshow. That doesn’t mean the timing of reform is wrong, it means it’s time for leadership.

The Senate bill lowers the cost of care and puts personal choices back in the hands of patients and their doctors.

We create an exchange where people can shop for coverage that meets their needs and, for the first time, force insurance companies to compete for the business of the American people.

We end discrimination based on pre-existing conditions and make it illegal to drop people when they get sick.

We give tax credits to small businesses and help the self-employed afford care.

We make preventive services free, end lifetime coverage limits and cap out-of-pocket fees.

We extend the life of Medicare without cutting guaranteed benefits. And we shrink the “doughnut-hole” gap in drug coverage for seniors.

After months of negotiations to build support in the face of united opposition, this bill may not do absolutely everything either I or this editorial page had hoped. But it’s a much-needed step forward.

With our economy hurting and Washington state families worried about keeping their jobs or making a mortgage payment, the last stress they need is to worry about the cost of getting sick, being dropped from their plan, or opening the mail to see yet another premium increase.

The system is in trouble now, and it won’t cure itself by delay.

U.S. Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., is a senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and a member of the elected Senate Democratic Leadership.

I just came off the floor of the U.S. Senate where I spoke about just who and what this health care debate is about.

This bill is about helping you, your loved ones, and people just like you across the country by bringing down your premiums, expanding your options, and increasing your stability.

It is about supporting the doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, technicians, and everyone who works every day to take care of you.

It is about helping our seniors by increasing benefits, cutting waste, and strengthening the Medicare they depend on.

It is about helping your children or other children in your lives by ending discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, including a provision that ensures that no insurance company will ever be able to turn away a child in our state based on a health condition.

And it is about Katerina, a woman from Redmond, Washington — one of the more than 10,000 people from Washington state who have sent me stories about their experiences with our broken health care system.

Katerina, a single mom with a good education, had a good job and a solid middle-class lifestyle, but she was laid off from work and lost her health insurance. Now she can barely afford COBRA coverage — and she told me she didn’t dare go to the doctor because the co-pays would be too costly. This is not how our system should work — where the reality is that neither she nor her child has access to true health care or preventive services.

After recently treating an eye infection, Katerina told me she had to make some serious and tough choices in her family’s food and clothing budget. What would happen if Katerina or her child got seriously ill?

We cannot wait any longer. It’s time to pass health care reform.

I have heard from so many families about the problems of the current health care system — people whose coverage was dropped because they got sick, whose costs have been increasing faster then their salaries. We simply can’t wait any longer to help them. We have been working on health care reform in the Senate for nearly a year, and now it is time to get this done for Katerina and her family and Doreen and her family who I spoke about last week — and all the other individuals and families whose lives have been derailed due to our current health care system.

If the status quo wins out, things will only get worse.

Health care is an issue that raises passions and debate on all sides. Changing our badly broken system was never going to come easy. But the indisputable fact is that if we do nothing, costs will continue to soar, families and businesses will continue to struggle under rising premiums, and millions of people in Washington will find their health care not in the hands of their doctors, but instead at the mercy of insurance industry executives.

I will continue to stand up to tell the stories of families and small business owners from my home state of Washington — because they are counting on us to fix this broken health care system.

It is time to help the more than 10,000 families I have heard from get stable health care coverage. And it’s time to help you, your loved ones, seniors, children, the unemployed, doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, and every American who deserves access to affordable, quality health care.

From the Lake Stevens Journal:

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced the Facilitating Outstanding Classrooms Using Size Reduction (FOCUS) Act of 2009, which would provide states with the resources they need to reduce class sizes across the early grade levels in order to provide students and teachers with an educational environment that encourages maximum student academic growth. Murray’s bill will also put in place evaluation tools to assess the program’s effectiveness.

“As a mother and former teacher, I have seen first-hand how much better students learn when they are in classes small enough for them to get the personal attention they deserve,” said Senator Patty Murray. “The FOCUS Act will provide school districts with the resources they need to reduce class sizes, recruit qualified teachers, and offer students the educational environment they need to learn and succeed.”

Specifically, the FOCUS Act would:

Create a grant program to reduce class sizes to 18 students in Kindergarten through third grade and beyond. States would receive funding to allocate to local educational agencies to hire new qualified teachers and to create a continuum of small classes for students in the early grades.

Create a separate authorization for Class Size Reduction efforts to prevent them from competing with teacher professional development and training funds in Title II of NCLB.

Provide districts with the ability to recruit highly qualified teachers to these new classrooms and provide the professional development needed to promote educator retention and implement high-quality instructional practices.

Increase accurate data, research, and resources available nationally on class size.

Create an evaluation of the class size reduction program to assess and report on the program’s effectiveness.

Research shows that participating in small classes has increasing academic benefits from year to year, both in the early grades when classes are small and in subsequent years when students are placed in larger classes. Students who were in small classes in early grades were found to be making better grades in high school and taking more advanced courses. At the end of fifth grade, students who were in small classes in first through third grades were about half a school year ahead of students from larger classes in all core subjects–reading, language arts, math, and science.

Similar legislation was introduced in the House by Representative David Wu (OR-1) in June of this year.

See more details on the Senate version of this bill.

Senator Murray is a senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee that oversees Education legislation as well as the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (LHHS) Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees education funding.

From the Bellevue reporter:

There may be some sanity in politics after all. A provision by Sen. Patty Murray may let UW, Mariners and Seahawks fans once again get a reasonably priced bus ride to the games.

Murray, chairman of the Senate Transportation Appropriations Committee, has put an item in the final version of the 2010 Senate Transportation Appropriations bill that would restore the ability for King County Metro Transit to provide service to a number of major sporting and special events. The provision would end a ruling by the Bush administration that said such transportation must first be offered to private carriers.

On the face of it, there was nothing wrong with that. However, in practice, private bus companies couldn’t offer the service at a price that the average fan would be willing to pay. As a result, more people had to use their own cars to get to the game,clogging up the roads and increasing pollution.

The final version of the spending bill came out of a conference committee between the Senate and the House and is expected to pass both bodies shortly before being sent to the President for his signature.

As Murray rightly noted, “This rule has gotten between fans and an affordable, convenient way to get to games in our region. We can’t stick fans with steep fares and sub-par service on their way to support our local teams.”

The 2008 Bush rule stated that a public transit agency cannot provide service to games if private charter operators are able to do so. The problem around here is that private charter operators were not able to accommodate handicapped fans, drastically increased fees for service, offered inconvenient and delayed staging, and increased congestion. Not surprisingly, there were lots of complaints over dumping Metro service, both by local sports fans and sports organizations.

Sports leaders have been quick to praise Murray’s efforts. Mariners’ CEO Howard Lincoln said the organization is “very appreciative” of Murray’s efforts. UW Athletic Director Scott Woodward called her efforts in the change “exceptional.”

Murray’s provision in the bill specifically target the issue here in the Puget Sound region, but we doubt this same problem exists elsewhere. Murray says she is intent on addressing this issue on a larger scale as the Senate moves toward reauthorization of a critical surface transportation bill in the coming year.

Good for her.

– Craig Groshart, for the Bellevue Reporter

From Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA):

I’ve been involved in Washington state politics for over 20 years, and in that time, I’ve met a lot of people who care deeply about our state. But let me tell you something: No one fights harder for the people of Washington than our senior Senator, my partner, Patty Murray.

But we all know that Patty’s hard work and accomplishments in the Senate won’t stop the Republican Party from doing everything they can to defeat her in 2010. So it’s up to you and me to make sure that Patty has the resources she needs to win.

That’s why Patty has set a goal of raising 2,009 grassroots donations for her re-election campaign before the December 31 fundraising deadline — and we all need to pitch in to help her reach it.

Can you help?

Contribute $5 or more today — and help Patty Murray reach her goal of 2,009 donations by the end of 2009.

So long as there are veterans who deserve better benefits, mothers who can’t afford health insurance, or families who’ve lost their homes — Patty will keep on fighting.

In these tough economic times, more than ever, we need leaders like Patty in the Senate who will fight for the hard-working people of Washington state.

We simply can’t afford to lose Patty Murray’s voice — and her heart — in the United States Senate.

Please donate $5 or more to help Patty reach her goal of 2,009 donations before the December 31 deadline.

I probably don’t have to tell you how important this December 31 fundraising deadline is. The press, pundits, and Patty’s Republican opponents will be looking hard at her campaign finance report to gauge whether she’s got the strength, momentum, and support to win next year.

We can’t show any sign of weakness. And we won’t — with your help today.

Please contribute now.

Thanks so much for your support.

With your help, I know we can help Patty reach her goal of 2,009 donations by the end of the year and keep her right where she belongs — working tirelessly for the people of Washington in the U.S. Senate.

Sincerely,

Maria Cantwell
U.S. Senator

Over the past week, I fought to protect women’s rights and women’s health by working to defeat the anti-choice Nelson amendment. I met with President Obama at the White House to discuss job creation and our future economic stability. And I attended a hearing to ensure that we are prepared to care for veterans returning home from war. These are priorities that you and I share.

Your support allows me to keep up these fights. It means so much to know that you and our entire online community are standing with me every day — especially during this pivotal debate on the critical issue of health insurance reform. But even as we continue this vital national discussion, we’ve also got to start looking ahead to 2010 and the tough campaign to come.

Already, more than 260 people have contributed to our end-of-year grassroots fundraising drive. But to reach our goal of 2,009 donations before December 31, we still have some work to do.

Can you help?

Please contribute now — and move us one big step closer to our goal of 2,009 donations before the December 31 fundraising deadline!

From my very first campaign for the Shoreline School Board until now, every campaign I’ve run has been fueled by strong grassroots support from individuals who come together to fight for the values we share. I have been honored to represent friends like you who are committed to making people’s lives better, but we cannot give up any ground.

That’s why our end-of-year grassroots fundraising goal is so important.

If we can reach our goal of 2,009 donations before the December 31 fundraising deadline, we’ll show the press, the pundits, and our anti-reform Republican opponents the strength of our grassroots support. And that will be an incredibly powerful message to send as we head into the 2010 campaign year.

I hope I can count on you.

Please contribute now — and help us reach our grassroots goal of 2,009 donations before December 31!

I will continue to tell your stories and fight for our shared values as we move forward with this important health care debate on the Senate floor.

Thanks for being with me, every step of the way.