Sarah Toce
U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, voted against the nomination of Doug Collins to serve as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
“Right now, the Trump administration is illegally withholding funding from communities across America, and they are ransacking and effectively gutting entire federal agencies—this kind of lawlessness is putting our economy, national security, and future at risk,” Murray said.
“Today I voted NO to confirm Doug Collins as VA Secretary because at this point I have not seen a single cabinet secretary stand up to Trump’s illegal power grab,” Murray said. “We should all be deeply concerned about what it could mean to give Elon Musk and his cronies free rein at VA—I am already hearing that DOGE may have barged into VA today. Musk and his associates already have the personal financial information of every veteran receiving disability or education benefits because of their illegal data mining at the Department of Treasury.”
Murray issued the alarm next.
“Will they now look at private health records of veterans? What else will they do that could put the health and safety of our veterans at risk? If Vought and Musk push to cut veterans benefits and limit healthcare eligibility as Project 2025 has outlined—would Doug Collins stand up to them? If this administration continues to press VA doctors, nurses, and support staff to resign—will Collins push back? I cannot confidently say he would.”
Murray continued, “I had a productive meeting with Mr. Collins prior to his hearing and we will need to work together on many issues, including getting the Electronic Health Record system fixed, but I cannot vote to confirm him as Trump dismantles government and breaks the law. As I work with Mr. Collins to support our veterans, I will also be pressing him to follow the laws as intended by Congress.”
Murray was the first woman to join the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the first woman to chair the Committee—as the daughter of a World War II veteran, supporting veterans and their families has always been an important priority for her.
Murray has fought throughout her career for increased benefits for veterans, housing assistance, better access to veterans’ clinics throughout Washington state, and more accountability from the VA.
Advocating for women veterans in particular has been a longtime focus for Murray, and as Chair of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee in 2010, Murray passed her landmark Women Veterans Health Improvement Act into law. Murray has worked to permanently authorize the VA child care pilot program to increase access to free, quality child care for veterans during their appointments, make much-needed improvements to the women veterans call center, and fix a loophole that left veterans footing the bill for medically-necessary emergency newborn transportation that VA should be covering.
Murray introduced and helped pass the Deborah Sampson Act, legislation to address gender disparities at VA that established a dedicated Office of Women’s Health at VA and required every VA health facility to have a dedicated women’s health primary care provider, among other things. Murray also helped to pass the MAMMO Act to expand access to high-quality breast cancer screening and treatment services for veterans.
Murray leads the Veteran Families Health Services Act, comprehensive legislation that would expand fertility treatments—including IVF—and family-building services for servicemembers and veterans who are unable to conceive without assistance, and she has sought unanimous consent to pass the legislation on multiple occasions.
Last March, Murray applauded VA’s move to expand IVF services to eligible unmarried veterans and eligible veterans in same-sex marriages, and allowing veterans to use donated gametes in IVF services.
Murray has been conducting oversight on the flawed Electronic Health Record system rollout in Washington state since the Trump Administration first negotiated the contract with Cerner (later acquired by Oracle), and at every point in the process since then.
Murray has consistently pushed VA on its failed implementation of EHR—conducting oversight, holding the administration accountable, and calling on VA to halt deployment of EHR until they get it right in Washington state.
In March 2023, Murray introduced comprehensive legislation that would require VA to implement a series of EHR reforms to better serve veterans, medical personnel, and taxpayers.
In the Fiscal Year 2024 funding bills, Murray negotiated and passed as Chair of the Appropriations Committee stronger language to hold VA and Cerner accountable for the rollout of the EHR system, and in May 2024, she sent a letter urging VA to consider feedback on the system from providers and veterans in Spokane and Walla Walla and reiterating that VA must not move forward on the rollout of EHR until the myriad issues that have plagued the system in the locations where it has been launched are fixed.
