U.S. Senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy, will provide his perspectives on key issues currently facing the United States 
Chris Murphy is the junior United States Senator from Connecticut. He serves on the Foreign Relations Committee, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and the Appropriations Committee. Prior to the Senate, Murphy served for three terms in the U.S. House representing the state’s fifth congressional district. In Congress, Murphy is acknowledged as a leading voice for stronger anti-gun violence measures, a smarter foreign policy, and reform of our nation’s mental health system.
Before being elected to Congress, Murphy served for eight years in the Connecticut state legislature. Murphy graduated with honors from Williams College in Massachusetts and received his law degree from the University of Connecticut School of Law. He is married to Catherine Holahan, an attorney, and they have two sons, Owen and Rider.
Speaker Summary
Fresh out of a Foreign Relations Committee briefing on Ukraine, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy provided thoughts on the war in Ukraine and the recent Hamas attacks and Israel’s response to them, followed by over 30 minutes of Q&A on a broad range of subjects that were on the minds of the DMA members.
He started by explaining his position as being essentially “anti-war” but that he is willing to supports “just” wars, and that the war in Ukraine is such a war. The senator commented about the impact on the world order if Russia succeeds and how what happens in Ukraine could impact how China perceives its opportunity to invade Taiwan. So, he sees our support to ensure Ukrainian victory as a wise use of resources, especially since it involves funding and materials but no ask for us to involve our troops in the fight. Regarding Israel, he talked to the barbarism of the Hamas attacks and the need to hold terrorist groups accountable while expressing concerns about civilian losses and working to minimize this aspect of the response. He discussed the differential funding needs for each war and the challenges — and his frustration — in gaining congressional support to fund both efforts due to Republican efforts to tie the funding to other policies/programs having nothing to do with these emergency funding needs.
He closed his prepared remarks by thanking us for giving him the opportunity to serve in his position and stating that he prides himself in taking a leadership role in working in a bipartisan manner to find solutions to problems facing the country.
A robust Q&A session followed in which Senator Murphy provided his perspectives on the state of the current immigration crisis including the change in the “mechanics of migration” and the worldwide market for immigrants, as well as his thoughts on what the key elements of meaningful immigration reform would include. These are: an increased standard for fear for asylum seekers; increased resources to facilitate more rapid processing of asylum applications; and the need for easier/improved access to temporary work visas to meet the needs of those seeking to enter the U.S. primarily to work (versus for asylum), which will also help address our need for more labor.
Among the other topics that were addressed in the Q&A were: how the challenge of approving hundreds of government promotions when tying these to policy disputes has undercut the logistical realities of getting the promotions approved; how the power of lobbies and campaign funding impacts the ability to find solutions to budget/deficit reduction issues like entitlement reforms (and how it talks to the need for campaign finance reform); how gun violence is about an environment of fear in low-income areas in addition to loss of life; his belief that there will be substantive progress on assault weapon bans and universal background checks (although he talked to a 10 year horizon for these changes); and that there are some “easy” gun safety changes that can happen sooner (like raising the age to purchase an AR-type gun and requiring licenses). Like Ken Bernhard, our recent speaker on the 2nd Amendment, he talked about the intention of our founding fathers to empower and enable the states to regulate gun ownership and use. Murphy noted how the breakdown in intelligence that occurred in Israel was not a surprise (while often right, intelligence is also often wrong), but that the real lesson learned is that intelligence to avoid attacks is not a substitute for policy that addresses the root cause of the issues that leads to them (and, in the case of Israel and the Palestinians, he believes a two-state solution is integral to that solution).
Interestingly, when asked about the challenges and risks to our democracy due to the extreme degree of current political partisanship, Murphy pushed back and talked to the number of pieces of bipartisan legislation that have been recently passed and that, while not naïve about partisan politics or defending the current situation, he believes the narrative is worse than the reality. He also noted that this is worse in the House than the Senate, where he sees more effective bipartisanship. He also attributed some of the problems in the House to issues around redistricting.
The senator ended with an appeal for all of us to be vigilant and sensitive to the needs and dangers in Jewish and Muslim communities in the U.S., for our need to support them, and to report threatening actions to the appropriate authorities.