James Edward Murray (May 3, 1876 – March 23, 1961) was an American politician and United States senator from Montana, and a liberal leader of the Democratic Party.

That same year his father died and he went to live with a wealthy uncle in Butte, Montana, James Andrew Murray, who owned valuable copper mines.

When Senator Thomas Walsh died in 1933, Democratic Governor John E. Erickson resigned and had himself appointed to the seat, despite his weak political base.

[7] After the war, conservatives controlled Congress, so Murray had little success with his proposals to expand Social Security, provide free medical care for the aged, expand federal aid to education, or create a Missouri Valley Authority with the federal control over Montana's water resources patterned after the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Instead, Congress adopted the Pick-Sloan Plan with flood control by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, and private development.

As Chairman of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee in the 1950s, Murray was more successful in promoting federal development of hydroelectric power through large dams throughout the West.