The political positions of Lisa Murkowski are reflected by her United States Senate voting record, public speeches, and interviews. Lisa Murkowski is a Republican senator from Alaska who has served since 2002.
Senator Murkowski is a moderate Republican. Since winning re-election in 2010, her voting record has been deemed by some as "more moderate" when compared to her previous years in the Senate. The National Journal, in 2013, gave Murkowski a composite score of 56% conservative and 45% liberal. The National Journal ranked her as the 56th most liberal and 44th most conservative member of the Senate. According to GovTrack, Murkowski is the second most liberal Republican Senator and, , is placed by GovTrack's analysis to the left of all Republicans, except Susan Collins, and to the left of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. The New York Times arranged Republican senators by ideology and also ranked Murkowski as the second most liberal Republican. In 2018, the fiscally conservative PAC Americans for Prosperity gave her a lifetime rating of 75% conservative and the ACU gave her a 52% conservative score in 2017. Americans for Democratic Action gave her a 2018 rating of 20% liberal. According to FiveThirtyEight, which tracks Congressional votes, Murkowski voted with President Trump's position approximately 73% of the time as of January 2021. As of October 2021, she has voted with President Biden's position nearly 79% of the time. According to CQ Roll Call, Murkowski voted with President Obama's position on votes 72.3% of the time in 2013, one of only two Republicans voting for his positions over 70% of the time.
Domestic policy Abortion views Murkowski is pro-abortion rights or 'pro-choice,' supports non-federally funded embryonic stem cell research, and has voted to prohibit Partial Birth Abortion. She did not want to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision and by July 2018, Murkowski was one of three Republican senators, along with Susan Collins and Shelley Moore Capito, who had publicly supported keeping the Roe v. Wade decision. In 2025 she and Susan Collins were the only 2 republicans to join all democrats and independents in opposing an ultimately successful bill that ended federal funding for planned parenthood. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00344.htm Murkowski opposes defunding Planned Parenthood. In 2017, she was one of seven Republicans, including Capito and Collins, who voted against a bill to repeal the ACA without a replacement that also would have defunded Planned Parenthood. In 2018, Murkowski joined Collins, voting with a majority of Democrats, against a bill to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Murkowski was one of two Republicans who voted against an amendment to prohibit federal funding from being given to facilities that promote abortion services or family planning. In 2021, she was one of three Republican senators, the others being Capito and Collins, who declined to sign an amicus brief supporting an anti-abortion Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
In 2019, Senator Murkowski announced support for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. She has introduced legislation in Congress to remove the previous deadline for the ERA's ratification in order to allow it to continue to receive support from the necessary number of states. The ERA has been opposed by conservative groups, including major anti-abortion organizations, due to concerns that the ERA would provide additional protections for abortion rights. In May 2019, Murkowski opposed laws that would ban abortion without exception.
Murkowski opposed the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Planned Parenthood, which rates politicians' support for abortion rights issues, has given Murkowski a lifetime score of 65% . NARAL Pro-Choice America, which also provides ratings, gave her a score of 42% in 2017. Conversely, National Right to Life, which opposes abortion and rates support for anti-abortion issues, gave Murkowski a score of 66% during the 114th Congress and a 0% in 2019.
Agriculture In April 2014, Murkowski sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack regarding a provision in the Agriculture Act of 2014 which would mandate retail stores accepting food stamps would have to stock "staple items in perishable form in three of the four following categories instead of two: dairy products; meat, poultry, or fish; fruits or vegetables; and bread or cereals." Murkowski wrote that this sometimes was not a plausible reality in bush Alaska, citing "the extreme weather conditions and transportation challenges" and asserted the inappropriateness of the Obama administration drafting rules "that prevented low-income Alaskans from participating in federal food assistance because the only local store within a hundred miles was kicked out of the program for not selling enough fresh fruit, milk, meat, and bread."
In 2018, Murkowski and Democratic senators Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz worked to include an amendment in a bipartisan farm bill that provided at least $4 million in small grants for individuals, food banks, schools and other nonprofits for the purpose of promoting food security within Hawaiian communities. The bill set policy and funding levels for agriculture and nutrition programs for the following five years and was passed in the Senate on December 11, 2018 in a vote of 87 to 13.
In March 2019, Murkowski and 46 other senators sent a letter to the Department of Agriculture (USDA) asserting their opposition to a USDA proposal that would restrict waivers and thereby make receiving nutritional assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program more difficult for an estimated 2.8 million people, critiquing the rule as ignoring "the intent of Congress, would worsen hunger in this country, and would do nothing to help increase stable, long-term employment or move individuals to self-sufficiency."
Death penalty As of 2010, Murkowski supports the death penalty for "certain crimes" such as first-degree murder and terrorism.
Summer meals In June 2019, Murkowski and Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand announced the Summer Meals Act of 2019, legislation altering the Department of Agriculture's Summer Food Service Program to grant more children access to summer meals in addition to providing transportation for children in rural and hard-to-reach areas to aid their access of summer meals along with imposing flexibility to the program so children can have more than one meal. Murkowski stated that many children in Alaska and the United States rely on meals from school and attributed federal policies as the reason for difficulty in feeding hungry children.
Budget In February 2015, after Senate leaders reached a compromise to lower the threshold for the number of votes needed to pass bills, Murkowski was one of 14 Republican senators to vote for legislation that extended a 2 percentage-point cut in the payroll tax for the remainder of the year and provided an extension of federal unemployment benefits along with preventing doctors' payments under Medicare from being cut.
In 2016, Murkowski was a cosponsor of the End Government Shutdowns Act, a bill by Rob Portman that would form an automatic continuing resolution (CR) for every appropriations bill for the purpose of the federal government never shutting down again. Funding for the continuing resolution would be reduced by 1 percent after the first 120 days, and by 1 percent every 90 days thereafter before Congress finished the annual appropriations process.
In January 2019, Senator Murkowski supported both Republican and Democratic bills to end a government shutdown. She was one of six Republicans who broke with their party to vote in favor of the Democratic proposal. In response to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross stating that he did not "understand why" workers had to go to food banks during the shutdown, Murkowski commented, "We saw yesterday the insensitivity of certain remarks a Cabinet secretary that demonstrated to me that he is just so clearly of out of touch, with men and women who get up every day and go do oftentimes pretty menial work at some of these jobs. I’m talking about the secretary of Commerce. And you know what he said was so disconnected from reality that it stunned me."
In April 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Senate passed $484 billion in relief with most funding going to refill the coffers of the Paycheck Protection Program. Murkowski stated that lawmakers knew they would be underestimating certain areas when passing the Families First Act and CARES Act and that they were aware they "have directed a lot of federal resources and it will require us getting back to work in order to deal with this", citing "no good choices". In May 2020, Murkowski and fellow Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan introduced the Coronavirus Relief Fund Flexibility Act, a bill that would authorize municipalities to use federal CARES Act funding for lost revenue.
In August 2021, Murkowski was among 19 Republicans in the Senate who voted with the Democratic caucus to approve a bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. In October 2021, she was one of the 15 Republicans who voted for a temporary spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. That same month, she voted with 10 other Republicans to break the filibuster of legislation to raise the debt ceiling. However, she voted against the final bill to raise the debt ceiling.
Taxes Murkowski is a signer of Americans for Tax Reform's Taxpayer Protection Pledge.
The National Federation of Independent country Business named Murkowski a Guardian of Small Business for her "outstanding" voting record on behalf of small business owners.
On December 2, 2017, Murkowski voted for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, citing her desire for job growth and tax reduction.
In December 2019, Murkowski and Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen introduced S. 2942, an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 that would provide some contributions be treated as non-taxable contributions to capital in an effort to prevent taxation of Contributions in Aid of Construction (CIAC). National Association of Water Companies (NAWC) President and CEO Robert F. Powelson stated that the NAWC was "very grateful for the support and leadership of Senators Shaheen and Murkowski in pushing S. 2942 forward" and that the bill would "allow America’s water companies to continue to provide safe, reliable drinking water and wastewater services to customers at an affordable price by ensuring that the expansion of these services to new customers or new locations does not unfairly burden a utility’s existing customers.”
In May 2020, along with Mike Braun, John Hoeven, and Kelly Loeffler, Murkowski introduced the Safeguarding Small Business Act, legislation that would end all tax liability associated with loan forgiveness under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Murkowski said lawmakers needed "to give our small businesses whatever help we can to make sure they are able to keep their workers employed and their doors open" and promoted the bill's passage as helping "ensure Alaska’s small business owners are protected under the PPP as intended, giving them much-needed support to overcome the impacts of this pandemic."
Criminal justice