Mariah Baker has joined the office of Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) as a health policy adviser on May 1. Baker brings experience spanning multiple congressional offices and a committee post.
Policy Focus
In her new role, Baker will cover abortion, health, Native Americans, and veterans affairs. Sen. Murray sits on several committees with direct jurisdiction over those areas, including the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, and the Senate Appropriations Committee's Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee.
Murray has been active on health-adjacent legislation in the 119th Congress. She introduced the Helping Heroes Act, which would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to establish a Veteran Family Resource Program to address social determinants of health for veterans and their families. She also introduced the Stop Shackling and Detaining Pregnant Women Act, which would prohibit federal immigration authorities from detaining pregnant, lactating, or postpartum women except under extraordinary circumstances and mandate access to reproductive health care, including abortion services, in detention facilities.
Baker's Background
Baker holds an MPH in health policy from George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, earned between 2020 and 2022.
Her congressional career began in Sen. Martin Heinrich's (D-NM) office, where she served as an intern starting in September 2021, then as a legislative correspondent from December 2021 through February 2023, and briefly as a managing legislative aide through November 2023.
She then moved to the Senate Special Committee on Aging, serving first as a senior policy aide from November 2023 through April 2024, and then as a policy adviser through early 2025. That committee work gave her direct exposure to aging-related health policy at the federal level.
Most recently, Baker served as a senior policy adviser in the office of Rep. Suzan K. DelBene (D-WA-1) from February 2025 through April 2026. During that period, DelBene was also serving as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, a role that drew significant intra-party attention over the committee's approach to contested primaries.
Relevant Hearings
The committees Murray serves on have been active on issues that fall within Baker's portfolio. The Senate HELP Committee held a hearing on chemical abortion drugs in September 2024 and a hearing titled "Making the Health Care System Affordable" the same month. The committee also examined data-driven approaches to patient care in a December 2024 hearing titled "Transforming Health Care With Data."
On the veterans side, the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee held a hearing in January 2025 titled "Bridging the Gap: Enhancing Outreach to Support Veterans' Mental Health" and a field hearing in May 2026 on "Breaking Barriers: Improving Veterans' Mental Health in Louisiana."
For Native American health issues, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee held a January 2025 hearing on "Delivering Essential Public Health and Social Services to Native Americans," which examined federal programs serving Native Americans across the Department of Health and Human Services.
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