Patty Murray Quotes

I wasn't looking for a hobby. If I were looking for a hobby, it wouldn't be the United States Senate. That's one of the toughest jobs I'd probably ever do. I just felt there wasn't enough compromise going on: People were too far to the left, too far to the right, with no one trying to build a compromise.

Though the views of members of the House and Senate are as divergent as the people we represent, we bear the responsibility to work through our political differences and get things done. That's our job.

I believe in working together to solve the problems we've got. And we need to get rid of the venom in the political atmosphere in D.C. It's a poisonous atmosphere.

Without dialogue, you cannot run parliament. You have to interact.

By nature, I am a unifier. I am a builder of consensus. I don't believe in sloppy compromise. But I do believe in bringing people together.

It is not true that I dictate what should be done. There is a dialogue.

In the past, leaders of both parties have been able to reach across the partisan divide. They succeeded by retaining their own humanity and recognizing the same in their political opponents.

A leader's job is to find common ground.

The challenges our state faces must be met with the best solutions and ideas we can muster - and good ideas and good people reside on both sides of the aisle.

For me I made it clear that I wanted to meet with both sides of the political spectrum.

You have a Republican House, close numbers in the Senate, a Democratic president. If we're going to move forward at all as a country, we're going to have to do it by standing together.

I see good ideas on the Republican side as well as the Democratic side. You have to return civility and statesmanship to governance. If you don't do that, it doesn't matter what portfolio of issue you're pushing, nothing is going to get done.

The one thing I'm convinced George W. Bush is good at is bipartisanship. It's clearly something he enjoys personally.

We are looking for bipartisan solutions not partisan rhetoric.

In a divided government, you can't just say, 'It's my way or the highway.'

My message to Washington is the United States has gone through incredible crises, and our leaders have been able to find common ground. And that's what our leaders have to do.

I worked with a group of people who argued day and night - professors, officials, the Minister of Finance - but there were decisions that I had to make.

The job of a leader, the job of a governor, the job of a president, is to get the people in the room and bang enough heads together and rub enough arms and cajole enough to have them put the country and the state's greater interest ahead of their own personal partisan interest. That's what we did in New Jersey and that's the model for America.

Dialogue means debates and everyone's point of view.

Do we have to talk in order to agree or agree in order to talk?

You're shooting yourself in the foot if you isolate or disempower the moderates.

We've been sitting at the compromise table for a long time. We're just waiting for that cold chair to be warmed up by the Republican leadership. They still have time to do the right thing and be responsible. They just seem to be moving further and further away from it.

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.

I believe any time that both parties are talking, it's a good thing.

I choose to bring people together. I choose to seek compromise.