Majority Leader

Erin Murphy

⚲ SAINT PAUL┃DISTRICT 64

✉ CONTACT ME ★ MY LEGISLATION 𖥠 VIEW DISTRICT 64 MAP @ SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER » MY PRESS RELEASES

Majority Leader Erin Murphy was elected by her Senate DFL colleagues to serve as Senate Majority Leader in February 2024. She led the caucus through the second year of a historic legislative biennium that produced some of the most significant policy changes in Minnesota in decades, advancing legislation to lower costs, expand opportunity, and strengthen communities across the state.

Leader Murphy has represented portions of Saint Paul in the Minnesota Senate since 2021. In addition to serving as Majority Leader, she chairs the Rules and Administration Committee and serves on the Finance and Higher Education Committees. Previously, she chaired the State and Local Government and Veterans Committee.

Before joining the Senate, Leader Murphy served six terms in the Minnesota House of Representatives, including serving as House Majority Leader.

A registered nurse, Leader Murphy has dedicated her career to public service and advocacy. Before running for office, she served as executive director of the Minnesota Nurses Association. She also worked as legislative director for former Hubert H. Humphrey III and as community relations director for the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning.

Originally from Janesville, Leader Murphy attended the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh and earned a master’s degree in organizational leadership in health care from the University of St. Catherine. She also completed a policy fellowship at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Murphy lives in Saint Paul with her husband, Joe Faust. They have two grown children, and one grandchild.

COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS

CHAIR

Rules and Administration

MEMBER

Finance
Higher Education

Legislative Accomplishments

Throughout her legislative career, Murphy has championed policies that make Minnesota healthier, more affordable, and more equitable. Her work has focused on expanding access to health care, protecting reproductive freedom, strengthening workers' rights, making prescription drugs more affordable, advancing tax fairness, supporting veterans, defending civil rights, and expanding early childhood education.

Balanced budget: Leader Murphy has negotiated a balanced and stable budget that protects programs Minnesotans rely on, as turned projected deficits into surpluses and preserves Minnesota’s perfect Triple-A credit rating.

Fighting the Trump Republican cuts: Murphy has helped Minnesota to prepare for threatened cuts to health care, food assistance and other programs imposed on Minnesota by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress.

Worker rights: Murphy was chief Senate author of the Nurse and Patient Safety Act to prevent workplace violence against healthcare workers and the Warehouse Worker Protection Act to increase safety and transparency at Amazon and other major warehouses.

Greater Minnesota public safety: Murphy chief authored funding for Attorney General prosecutors to assist in major cases in rural Minnesota.

COVID recovery: Murphy led the effort for $500 million in supplemental pay to frontline workers who got Minnesota through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Minimum Wage: As House Majority Leader, Murphy led as the DFL trifecta raised the state minimum wage for the first time in a decade and indexed its future to inflation, causing the minimum to more more than double from 2014 to 2026.

Marriage equality: Also while serving in House leadership, Murphy worked to legalize same-sex marriage, less one year after voters rejected a ban, becoming the eighth state in the nation to pass legalization.

Healthcare access: During her service in the House, Murphy’s negotiated the extension of the General Access Medical Care (GAMC) to keep tens of thousands of low-income Minnesotans on health insurance, and chief authoring the introduction of the Alec Smith Insulin Affordability Act.