SEATTLE, WA - Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell were among a group of 13 Democratic senators who voted this week against allowing cheaper prescription drugs to be imported into the U.S. from other countries - an idea that most Americans favor.

The vote - on a budget amendment raised by Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, and Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont - is being held up as an example of a split in the party between progressives and Democrats beholden to corporate interests. Indeed, Murray is one of the top recipients of campaign money from the pharmaceutical industry. According to the nonpartisan research group OpenSecrets.org, Murray received approximately $477,000 in contributions from the pharmaceutical and health products industry between 2011 and 2016.

Cantwell has received less from the industry as a whole, but individuals with ties to the biotech company Amgen, which until 2014 operated labs in Seattle and Bothell, have given her over $20,000 since 2011, according to OpenSecrets. The Klobuchar-Sanders amendment ultimately failed, even though polls have found that more than 70 percent of Americans want to be able to buy cheaper drugs from other countries. Indeed, the idea of importing cheaper drugs is so popular, 12 Republican senators - including conservatives like Ted Cruz and Jim Thune - voted for the amendment.

In recent years, drug companies have come under fire over drug price increases - most notably, life-saving drugs like Daraprim and EpiPen. Pharmaceutical executives have been dragged in front of Congress to answer for price hikes. U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., in September accused the CEO of Mylan, the company that makes EpiPen, of getting "filthy rich at the expense of our constituents." Cantwell spokesperson Bryan Watt told Patch.com that her "nay" vote had to do with the safety of imported drugs.



"Senator Cantwell supports prescription drug importation, but has deep concerns around patient safety and counterfeit drugs that do not meet [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] standards being imported into the country and putting patient lives in danger," he said. "Unfortunately, the Sanders amendment did not have specific measures to protect public safety."

For her part, Klobuchar did mention the safety of Canadian imports while introducing the amendment.

"We cannot sit here and do nothing. We have an opportunity, for those who believe in the free market, to allow in competition - competition from the safe country of Canada, our neighbors to the north," she said. Watt noted that Cantwell did vote "yea" on a different amendment regarding prescription drugs. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon - who voted for the Klobuchar-Sanders amendment - offered a "point of order" amendment to the budget resolution regarding prescription drugs. What that means is that any future laws that do not lower the price of prescription drugs would get called out on the Senate floor; it would not necessarily have a real-world impact on drug prices. At any rate, Wyden's amendment was rejected.