Dale Murphy
FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP

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District 41 Candidate DALE MURPHY (D).
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11/20/06
With the federal government failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, many mayors take the lead
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson (D) is leading the local battle to stem global warming. With the Bush administration offering little more than empty rhetoric to combat global warming, mayors in cities across the country have begun to accept that responsibility. In particular, Salt Lake City is leading the way in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Its successes stem from environmental efforts led by the city’s Democratic mayor, Rocky Anderson. “What we have done to combat global warming has been received very well,” Anderson says. “Nobody disagrees with decreasing our dependence on foreign oil, saving money and cleaning up the air locally.”
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, Jessica Tobacman

9/26/06
Murphy wins Primary Election
Dale Murphy won nearly 55% of the votes cast in the Primary Election, with stronger showings than his Republican opponent in 134 out of 183 Precincts.
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10/20/06
Fiscally responsible Democrat
After spending 10 years at Georgetown University teaching international relations and business diplomacy, Murphy said he was compelled to quit and run for office (in his hometown). ''I was so outraged at what was going on in American politics, I had to go out and do something about it,'' Murphy said.
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Seattle Times, Sonia Krishnan

10/26/06
Murphy at MI Forum: ''We are a common people working together for the common good''
Candidates for state representative in the 41st District and Darcy Burner running against U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, came to meet, talk and answer questions from citizens. Reichert did not attend the event, but sent along a letter to be read. (. . .) After Burner, candidates for the two positions within Washington's 41st Legislative District took the stage. Democrat and Islander Dale Murphy is running against incumbent Republican Fred Jarrett for Position 1. (. . .) One question concerned how to build consensus about transportation issues with politicians and voters across the Cascades. Murphy said he would work to convince politicians and citizens from Eastern Washington to support funding for the replacement of King County's seemingly doomed viaduct in Seattle and expanding or replacing the SR-520 Bridge. ``I would remind them that we are a common people working together for the common good,'' Murphy said. ``This means, for their agricultural goods to meet the market there needs to be a good statewide transportation system.''
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Mercer Island Reporter, J. Jacob Edel

11/1/06
King County Journal article on the race for the 41st District
(. . .) Murphy, too, advocates a balance of road and transit improvements and would likely support next year's ballot measures to fund Sound Transit and the Regional Transportation Improvement District. (. . .) Murphy said the state should come up with more money for student loans. He's against Initiative 920, which will ask state voters to repeal the estate tax, used to fund education. (. . .) Jarrett has raised nearly four times as much money as Murphy. His biggest contributors include large corporations such as Boeing, Qwest, Safeco, Vulcan, Weyerhaeuser (, Eli Lilly, Phillip Morris, two Asphalt PACs, ConocoPhillips oil company) and Microsoft. Murphy's largest contributors were (private individuals and) the 41st District Democrats and the Washington State Democratic Central Committee.
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King County Journal, David A. Grant

10/25/06
Hospitals Try Free Basic Care for Uninsured
With the number of uninsured people in the United States reaching a record 46.6 million last year, up by 7 million from 2000, Seton is one of a small number of hospital systems around the country to have done the math and acted on it. Officials decided that for many patients with chronic diseases, it would be cheaper to provide free preventive care than to absorb the high cost of repeated emergencies. . . . Reaching out to uninsured patients, especially those with chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure or asthma, is a recent tactic of “a handful of visionary hospital systems around the country,” said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation in New York that concentrates on health care. These institutions are searching for ways to fend off disease and large debts by bringing uninsured visitors into continuing basic care.
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New York Times, Erik Eckholm

10/1/06
State Senator Weinstein Endorses Dale Murphy
Senator Brian Weinstein (D-41) endorses Dale Murphy's candidacy for the State Legislature.
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5/8/06
GOP strategy: focus on local issues as a distraction
(Republican political strategy is to focus on local issues, because they know they have failed so badly on broader issues. The following article is from May 2006, published in the pro-Republican Washington Times:) Republican campaign officials are urging their candidates to focus on local issues to blunt what they think is a sour national mood that could cut deeply into House and Senate majorities in the November elections. In a strategic shift in response to generic congressional polls that show the Democrats lead the Republicans by 15 points among registered voters, the Republican campaign committees are falling back on an old election axiom. And they point to numerous races where their candidates have begun addressing more local issues -- from sales-tax increases to overcrowded suburbs (...) said Ed Patru, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. Brian Nick, chief spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, says this is the strategy in the Senate races, too. He added that North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole, the NRSC chairman, ''is definitely stressing to the candidates to run on local issues.'' The local-issue emphasis has been building for months in a number of races as poll after poll showed increasing voter disapproval of the Bush administration and the Republican Congress. Last week, Gallup said voter dissatisfaction has reached its highest level yet, finding that the Democrats led Republicans 54 percent to 39 percent in their generic polls. And for the first time since 1992, Gallup said ''a majority of registered voters say that most members of Congress do not deserve re-election.'' But this is the first time that (Republican) party officials have begun to talk openly about changing the focus of their campaign debate away from national issues, which Democrats say favor them, to local concerns that give the most vulnerable candidates a chance to shift attention away from tougher issues such as the war in Iraq, immigration, corruption and rising gas prices that have dominated congressional debate in Washington. But Democratic campaign advisers say the Republican strategy will ultimately fail. ''There can no longer be any question whatsoever that the tide is running very strongly for the Democrats,'' said Democratic campaign consultant Alan Secrest. ''The Republicans will do their best to shift attention away from macro-issues to micro-issues.''
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10/15/06
Health Care: starting with all our children
Over 600,000 Washingtonians are uninsured, including 100,000 children. Many more are underinsured. They are struggling to pay for their prescriptions. They are using emergency rooms for routine care. They are trying to find their way, through a complicated medical system, during a very difficult and vulnerable time in their lives. We also have small business owners who think of their employees as family but cannot find affordable insurance. Medical providers, too are struggling to keep their doors open with the rising number of uninsured patients, the increasing cost of liability insurance and inadequate reimbursement rates. Our current system is unsustainable. It is costly. And it falls short of improving the health and safety of our population. We all want to make sure that every single person in this state has access to the highest quality care. We all want our families, friends and neighbors to live healthy, productive lives. We all want Washington to be the healthiest state in the nation.
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9/25/06
US Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat
A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks. The classified National Intelligence Estimate (titled ''Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States'') attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee... The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government... An opening section of the report, ''Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,'' cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology. The report ''says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,'' said one American intelligence official.... Previous drafts described actions by the United States government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, and some policy makers argued that the intelligence estimate should be more focused on specific steps to mitigate the terror threat. It is unclear whether the final draft of the intelligence estimate criticizes individual policies of the United States... The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts... More recently, the Council on Global Terrorism, an independent research group of respected terrorism experts, assigned a grade of ''D+'' to United States efforts over the past five years to combat Islamic extremism.
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Seattle Post-Intelligencer,

8/14/06
US Cong. Adam Smith endorses Dale Murphy
US Congressman Adam Smith has endorsed Dale Murphy's bid for election to State Representative in the 41st LD.
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3/14/06
The far right has complete control of the (Republican) party
OLYMPIA — Two-term Republican Rep. Rodney Tom of Medina says he is quitting the Republican Party to run for the state Senate as a Democrat. ''I realized the far right has complete control of the party and for me to be effective for my constituents I need to be a Democrat,'' Tom said today. He said being a Democrat is not only a better fit for the changing political demographic of the Eastside's 48th Legislative District, but a more comfortable fit for his ideology (...). The 48th Legislative District covers some of the state's most upscale suburbs, including Bellevue, Redmond and Medina. It was once solidly Republican but in recent years voters have shifted. Tom's seatmate in the House is Democrat Ross Hunter. Voters in the district voted for Democrat John Kerry for president in 2004. It is heavily populated by high-tech workers who Tom says have helped to moderate the politics of East King County. ... Tom is a Realtor and said that when he first decided to run for the Legislature, he saw himself as a fiscal conservative who would fit best in the Republican Party. ''In the old days if you were a businessman you were a Republican,'' he said. But as the district changed, he said, the Republican Party has gotten more conservative and come under control of what he says is the ''far right.''
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Seattle Times,

8/30/06
CA takes lead in global warming fight
California catapulted to the forefront of U.S. efforts to fight global warming on Wednesday with an accord that will give the state the toughest laws in the nation on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and possibly spur a reluctant Washington to take similar action. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has accused fellow Republican President George W. Bush of failing to demonstrate leadership on climate change, said he reached a ''historic agreement'' with Democrats to make California a world leader in reducing carbon emissions. ''The success of our system will be an example for other states and nations to follow as the fight against climate change continues,'' Schwarzenegger said in a statement after weeks of tense negotiations. The bill now seems certain to win approval this week in a vote in the state Senate and Assembly, where Democrats hold majorities. ... Despite opposition from within his own party, Schwarzenegger was expected to support the bill... Green policies are popular among voters in environment-savvy California, the world's eighth-largest economy and 12th largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. California's Global Warming Solutions Act aims to cut emissions to 1990 levels, or around 25 percent, by 2020 with an enforceable cap and mandatory reporting for top polluters like energy companies. 'HUGE' IMPACT ON WASHINGTON: ... California's breakthrough on global warming could have a ''huge'' impact on policy in Washington, said Fred Krupp, president of environmental advocacy group Environmental Defense. ''This adds tremendous momentum to the already growing momentum and makes it more likely than ever that Washington will act,'' said Krupp. He said companies are ahead of politicians on global warming and have expressed a preference for a national framework on cutting emissions rather than ''a patchwork quilt of state regulations.'' Worried about the impact on business, Schwarzenegger pushed for a market-based system that will eventually give companies tools to meet emissions targets, like carbon credit trading. ''We created a clear path to allow California to enter into that market-based system and we're very proud we were able to reach that agreement with the governor,'' said bill author and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a Los Angeles Democrat.
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Reuters, Mary Milliken

5/27/06
National Republican woes spill over into state-level races
There's a whiff of angst in the ranks that Republican Party troubles nationally could create problems for local races at home. The party has been beleaguered by the war in Iraq, rising gas prices, the forced resignation of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal. President Bush's approval ratings are at record lows. ... A WA state poll by Seattle pollster Stuart Elway in March showed that when voters were asked which party's legislative candidate they most likely would vote for, Democrats had 44 percent whereas Republicans had only 33 percent, with the rest undecided. ''I'm worried,'' said Rep. Fred Jarrett, a Republican from Mercer Island. ''If it's a bad year for Republicans everywhere, I'm a Republican.''
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Seattle Times, .

8/11/06
Representative Clibborn Endorses Dale Murphy
Representative Judy Clibborn (D-41) Endorses Dale Murphy's candidacy for State Legislature.
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8/11/06
Cities, States Aren't Waiting For U.S. Action on Climate
With DC lawmakers deadlocked on how best to curb global warming, state and local officials across the country are adopting ambitious policies and forming international alliances aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. The initiatives, which include demands that utilities generate some of their energy using renewable sources and mandates for a reduction in emissions from motor vehicles, have emboldened clean-air advocates who hope they will form the basis for broader national action. (...) This flurry of action is part of a growing movement among state and local leaders who have given up hope that Congress and the administration will tackle major issues, and are launching their own initiatives on immigration, stem cell research and energy policy.
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Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin

7/28/06
Reagan conservative lashes out at 'hijackers of the conservative movement'
He didn’t support invading Iraq. He says national security decisions are too often made for political gain. And he maintains that Tom DeLay used “legal plunder” for the “immoral purpose of holding onto power.” A Democrat? No – His name is Richard Viguerie, a conservative icon and key architect of Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory.
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7/29/06
John Kerry: local races have profound impact on country as a whole
Kerry says Democrats can make a more secure nation. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry on Saturday challenged Democrats to take back statehouses and governor's mansions across the nation in November, saying the country has become less secure under Republican control. ... ''Who you choose for your local races is going to have a profound impact on the country as a whole,'' said Kerry. ... He has been helping state-level candidates around the nation, and was in Story City for a $30-a-head brunch for Democrat Rich Olive, who is running for the Iowa Senate District 5 seat.
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Associated Press, Amy Lorentzen

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