Sen. Lisa MurkowskiCertified

Election Legitimacy (29/30)

Murkowski’s record on accepting certified election outcomes is unusually consistent, including when doing so put her at odds with her own party’s president. Ahead of the January 6, 2021 count, she announced early that she would affirm Biden’s win, stating “The oath I took at my swearing-in was to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” She joined a bipartisan group of senators pledging not to object; as reported, “Murkowski, a Republican, and nine other senators stated Sunday they will not seek to overturn results that saw former Vice President Joe Biden win both the popular and electoral vote.” She was also part of the group of Republicans who publicly said they would oppose the effort by some colleagues to challenge the results, at a time when The Hill reported that legal challenges to the results “have been dismissed by the courts.”

Months earlier, when Trump suggested the 2020 election would be fraudulent, Murkowski publicly rebuked him, warning that he was “undermining faith in the legitimacy of American democracy by suggesting the 2020 election will be fraudulent.” After January 6, she went further than certification and voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial for “incitement of insurrection,” stating in her official release that “President Trump allowing the violence to go on for hours without any clear directive or demand for peace – his intentional silence – cost America.” She also voted that the Senate had constitutional authority to try a former president, rejecting the argument that impeachment power evaporates once an official leaves office.

There is no evidence in the record of Murkowski disputing any certified election result without evidence, in 2020, 2022, or 2024. The one-point deduction reflects the absence of comparably prominent public commentary specifically on 2022 or 2024 certification (a lower-salience cycle for objections), rather than any negative finding.

Voting Rights (21/25)

Murkowski has one of the strongest voting-rights records of any sitting Senate Republican. She was “the exception” when, on a 2022 cloture vote, Senate Republicans “voted to block debate on the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and prevent the bill from receiving a floor vote” — she was the sole Republican “yes.” She co-sponsored the substitute compromise version of the bill, and the Brennan Center noted that “Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) joined a substitute amendment as co-sponsors” and that “Senator Murkowski told NBC News that she would vote yes on cloture for the bill.” She and Manchin also jointly pressed for a “bipartisan compromise on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act” alongside Leahy and Durbin, reflecting an active push (not just a symbolic vote) to restore federal voting-rights enforcement mechanisms gutted by Shelby County v. Holder.

More recently, she broke with her party and the Trump administration to oppose the SAVE Act, a proof-of-citizenship voting bill, calling it federal overreach that undermines states’ control of elections , and criticizing the push to “nationalize elections.” Points are withheld because she has also, at times, opposed broader Democratic-authored election-administration packages (e.g., the original Freedom to Vote Act) on federalism grounds, so her record is strong but not maximalist on every voting-access bill.

Checks and Balances (20/25)

Murkowski’s clearest checks-and-balances moment was her impeachment conviction vote and her separate vote affirming that the Senate retained constitutional jurisdiction to try a former president — a position that preserves congressional accountability tools even after an official leaves office. On the rule of law generally, when Trump was indicted by the DOJ, she avoided partisan framing, stating “no one is above the law but every American is innocent until proven guilty.” On the 2024 verdict in Trump’s New York trial, she similarly avoided attacking the judicial process, saying only that “the trial and verdict is ‘the first step in the legal process’” and that “the former president has the right to appeal and I fully expect him to exercise that right.”

In 2025, amid disputes over DOJ handling of the Epstein files, Murkowski publicly questioned whether an administration move targeting Obama was a “weak attempt at distraction” from that controversy, signaling willingness to scrutinize the executive branch’s use of DOJ. This is a real but comparatively modest data point; the record available does not include a comprehensive account of her votes on judicial nominees or specific oversight/subpoena-enforcement legislation in the current Congress, so the score reflects solid but incomplete documentation rather than a ceiling on her actual conduct.

Conduct in Office (20/20)

No nonpartisan ethics body has issued a finding of wrongdoing against Murkowski. A 2006-07 controversy arose when she and her husband bought Kenai River property from a longtime political donor at a below-market price; a watchdog group filed an ethics complaint, but as Anchorage Daily News reported, “nothing ever came of the ethics complaint, which Murkowski said was dropped after she explained it.” She voluntarily sold the land back and revised her disclosure forms. Because no Ethics Committee, GAO, or Inspector General finding of a violation exists, the rubric’s standard (deduct only for documented nonpartisan findings) yields full marks.

Bipartisan Cooperation (9/10)

Murkowski has repeatedly been a lead Republican co-negotiator on democracy-related legislation. She was a lead co-sponsor, alongside Democrats and Republicans including Warner, Tillis, Coons, Collins, Graham, Klobuchar, McConnell, and Schumer, of the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022, which Ballotpedia notes “was signed into law by President Joe Biden (D) on December 23, 2022” after “the Senate approved the bill… in a 68-29 vote.” On voting rights, she and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin jointly called for reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act, and she partnered with Leahy, Durbin, and Manchin on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act compromise. This sustained, substantive cross-party work on core democracy legislation — not just occasional cross-party votes — justifies a near-maximum bonus score.