Stranger writer Eli Sanders scored an interview with Sen. Patty Murray as she swung through Wallingford today. Check it out.

Sanders asks Murray about her legislation to direct $30 billion to community banks. Sen. Murray tells Sanders its time to focus on community banks rather than Wall Street.

Murray's counterpart, Sen. Maria Cantwell, who has been calling for the same thing, has actually criticized Murray's legislative approach. (Cantwell directs her critique at the Obama administration rather than at Sen. Murray.)

In a PubliCola sit down with Sen. Cantwell this month, Cantwell told us:

Sen. Cantwell: My critique [of Obama's speech] is that the treasury responded very quickly to get access to capital to big banks, and yet it’s been over a year to get access to capital to small banks which is the conduit for small businesses to get lending. I personally believe, and several of my colleagues do, that they [the White House] can act now, they don’t need legislation to do that. They can design the program and get it out tomorrow. And so I don’t want to lose any more time because every day that goes by there’s more bankruptcies and they [small businesses] are just as important in trying to solve the problem in dealing with what we dealt with a year ago. More than a year ago.