Kyrsten Sinema is famous for wearing colorful wigs, but yesterday, she functionally put on a white hood.
As President Biden headed to the Capitol to convince the Senate Democratic caucus to ditch the filibuster in order to pass crucial voting rights legislation, Sinema took to the floor of the Senate to reiterate her disinterest in lifting a finger.
In doing so, Sinema all but doomed the Freedom to Vote and John Lewis Voting Rights Restoration Acts, which have overturned or challenged nearly two dozen new voter suppression laws and a raft of extreme gerrymanders passed by Republicans in states across the country.
She also may have triggered her own demise, as I detail below.
Shortly thereafter, fellow conservative holdout Joe Manchin issued his own illogical statement in defense of the filibuster. Given Democrats’ lagging poll numbers and the fanaticism of the Republican candidates running in key races across the country, the midterm elections may well be the last even semi-fair elections held in this country for a very long time.
In defending the indefensible, Sinema chastised Democratic leaders for not working harder to do the impossible: get Republicans on board with voting rights legislation or rules changes. Even richer, she zeroed in on the past three months as the time when Democrats should have been reaching out across the aisle — right when Sinema was busy killing Democrats’ economic agenda and collecting big checks from corporate lobbyists. Oh, and trying to get an undocumented kid deported.
Gathering Clouds in Arizona
It’s unclear what comes next; Biden hosted Sinema and Manchin at the White House on Thursday evening, but few details have emerged about that meeting. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he will bring the voting rights package up for debate next Tuesday, which could force the duo to officially vote against the rule change necessary to bend the filibuster. If that happens, Sinema will be firing the starting gun on her own primary challenge.
Sinema Primary Pledge, one of several groups that formed this past fall to pressure the senator into dropping her fixation with the filibuster and supporting the Democratic agenda, has raised over $110,000 since the end of September. If the rule changes come up for a vote in the Senate and Sinema indeed follows through with her promise to vote against any adjustments to the filibuster, the money is removed from escrow and released to the campaign.
“Then it’ll be all gloves off,” Belén Sisa, a founder of the Sinema Primary Challenge, told me this afternoon. “We gave you a chance and you decided to not do what the people of Arizona asked.”
The Primary Sinema Pledge is bifurcating its financial power to follow an inside-outside plan that does more than make a lump sum donation to a politician. Half of the money it raises will be dispensed to local grassroots organizations that have been crucial to turning Arizona blue and have led the fight to hold Sinema accountable. That list includes LUCHA, the Hispanic-led group that has sent members to protest at a number of of Sinema’s high-dollar fundraisers.
Progressives Everywhere spoke with the organizing director of LUCHA about their efforts in October.
“It's going to take years to build up a primary challenger that's going to be strong enough because she is a fundraising machine,” Sisa says. “It's gonna be the bad guys versus the underdog in this situation, and it's because she's just so backed by corporate interests and the Chamber of Commerce.”
Then again, Sinema may be in danger of losing the backing of an even more important constituency. Arizona Democratic Party chair Raquel Terán put out a blistering statement on Thursday — on behalf of the party itself — that called Sinema out by name for choosing the filibuster over the rights of her constituents. Arizona Republicans last year passed a series of voter suppression laws and have several more teed up for the new legislative session.
Multiple sources tell me that this may not be the last time that the Arizona Democrats officially express their displeasure with Sinema — keep an eye out over the next week for some updates there.
Whether the ADP officially endorses another candidate or not, challengers will not hurt for initial financial support. The other half of the money raised by the Sinema Primary Pledge will go to a primary candidate that the group’s board deems the best and most progressive alternative to the widely loathed senator.
Rep. Ruben Gallego, widely rumored to be considering a primary challenge, called Sinema out by name in a speech on the House floor almost immediately after hers concluded. He again blasted her on Friday in a televised interview on CNN, calling her an inconsistent, disingenuous liar who has abandoned her constituents.
I’m told that Gallego has a lot of support amongst progressive organizations, as he has been outspoken on behalf of immigration, low-income workers, ending useless wars, and better health care, among other issues. His entrance would also likely convince the state Democratic Party to at least sit out of the primary, which would be a huge functional loss for Sinema, whose ground game operation has absolutely been shattered. Once a local leader, she now has little infrastructure beyond statewide offices that she never visits and in fact are often closed.
CLICK HERE to Donate to Sinema Primary Pledge via CrowdPac!
CLICK HERE to Donate to LUCHA and other Sinema primary organization in Arizona!
P.S. The national media allowed Kyrsten Sinema to get this powerful, focusing on her every move, celebrating her work with Republicans, and focusing on process and not the moral rot at her core.
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