Erin Murphy

Erin Murphy (born March 13, 1960) is an American politician and a former Majority Leader of the Minnesota House of Representatives. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), she represented District 64A, which included the Summit Hill neighborhood of the city of Saint Paul in Ramsey County in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. She is a former executive director of the Minnesota Nurses Association and is a registered nurse.

Murphy graduated from high school in Janesville, Wisconsin, and later attended the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, receiving her B.S. in nursing in 1984. She earned her M.A. in organizational leadership in health care at the College of St. Catherine in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 2005, and also attended the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota from 2005 to 2006 as a policy fellow.

Murphy is a former executive director of the Minnesota Nurses Association and has also worked for the organization as a lobbyist and organizer. She previously worked in state government as legislative director for former Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey III, and as community relations director for the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning. She was also an operating room nurse at the University of Minnesota Medical Center.

Murphy served on the board of directors of Citizens for a Safer Minnesota from 1999 to 2001, and as a member of the board of trustees of the American Nurses Association political action committee. She was also an executive board member of the Minnesota chapter of the AFL–CIO.

Murphy was first elected in 2006, and was re-elected in 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014. She served on the Rules and Legislative Administration Committee, the Health Care and Human Services Policy and Oversight Committee, the Taxes Committee, the Finance Subcommittee for Health Care and Human Services Finance Division, and the Health Care and Human Services Policy and Oversight Subcommittee for the Licensing Division.

After the 2012 elections, Murphy was elected by the DFL House caucus to be Majority Leader.

Murphy announced her candidacy for Governor of Minnesota on November 17, 2016. Murphy stated that her top priorities in office would be ensuring proper care for Minnesota's aging population, lessening the educational achievement gap, reducing racial disparities among Minnesotans, and bringing more jobs to Minnesota. Murphy supported a statewide single-payer healthcare system. She earned the endorsement of the Minnesota DFL at its annual convention in Rochester, MN on June 2, 2018, after seven rounds of voting. Swanson announced her candidacy after the DFL convention, where she lost the endorsement for Attorney General. She challenged U.S. Representative Tim Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson in the DFL primary contest on August 14, losing to Walz who became the party nominee for governor.