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Player of the Week: Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)

by The Hill Editors - 03/11/13 11:38 PM ET

Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) faces two significant challenges this week.

She is working on a spending bill that would avert a government shutdown, and she is simultaneously crafting a budget resolution that will be difficult to pass.

The appropriation measure is expected to clear Congress with bipartisan support before Washington runs out of appropriated money later this month.

But the budget measure is not going to be so easy.

Senate Democrats haven’t passed a budget resolution in four years, and they have enjoyed less and less the constant ribbing for it that they have received from the GOP.

Murray’s budget faces major hurdles, the first of which is the composition of her panel. Democrats only have a 12-10 majority, which means that if all Republicans vote no, Murray can afford not even one defection. That means convincing Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Angus King (I-Maine) all to vote yes on the same measure. They are not men who see the world and policy in similar ways.

Sanders, a sharp critic of any suggestion that entitlement programs be cut, last week told The Hill that the budget talks have been “very hard.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), another Budget panel member, said, “A Senate budget debate is never for the faint of heart, and this year is going to be especially difficult.”

Should Murray get her budget through committee, more stumbling blocks await on the floor.

Democratic senators from red states who face reelection battles next year will have to be courted. This group includes Sens. Max Baucus (Mont.), Mark Begich (Alaska), Kay Hagan (N.C.), Tim Johnson (S.D.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.).

Other Democrats who could balk at the budget include Sens. Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Jon Tester (Mont.).

Murray and her fellow Democratic leaders can afford only five defections. If Democrats don’t get 51 votes, senators’ pay will be suspended, as stipulated in a bill that became law last month.

But it is worth noting that Murray is on a roll. She helped expand the Democratic majority last year as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and later was rewarded with her Budget gavel.

Still, passing this bill might prove an even bigger challenge than tightening her party’s hold on the upper chamber.