Minutes before President Joe Biden made his way to Capitol Hill to persuade Democrats to repeal existing Senate rules in the interest of protecting voting rights, Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) arrived. the Senate floor to give the president, her colleagues, and her country a simple answer: No.
Sinema’s opposition to changing the council’s threshold of 60 votes to pass legislation is not news. She has said so since Democrats took control of Congress last January.
But the way Sinema timing her speech — and her decision to give only one — equates to a punch in the face to Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and hundreds of Democratic lawmakers, who have rallied to push through electoral reform since the start of the new year.
On Tuesday, Biden and Harris went to Georgia for an important general address to make the case for passing bills to vote by changing the rules of the Senate. Schumer outlined a process that could generate such a debate within weeks. And many Democrats believe their time is running out to enact reform before it’s too late, with dozens of Republican-held states having enacted new restrictive voting laws ahead of the 2022 election.
Few Democrats feel it is likely, or even reasonable, that oligarchs like Sinema and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) will be moved at this stage. But even less was expected Sinema would offer coup grace on the Senate floor just seconds before Biden could reach Capitol Hill and make his plea. Sinema turned down Biden’s latest offer even before he made it.
Sens. Dick Durbin (IL) and Jeff Merkley (OR) were the only Democrats to join Sinema on the floor during her speech. While Durbin watched intently, Merkley kept his head down, jotting down notes in a notebook.
As they watched from afar, lawmakers and Democratic aides discreetly watched Sinema’s speech. And her colleagues started calling her out: Representative Jared Huffman (D-CA) tweeted soon after, “shame on you.”
On the House floor, where Democrats on Thursday morning passed another round of voting rights legislation, Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) took the rare step of calling out his Arizona colleague by name.
“Today, the House showed its place,” Gallego said. “We will not shrink back from defending our democracy… The time has passed for the US Senate and Sen. Sinema to do the same.”
Gallego is often referred to as a Potential main challenger to Sinema in 2024, and his candidacy seems more likely on the day.
Either way, Sinema made it clear on Thursday that she supports the Democratic Party’s electoral reforms — just not changing the Senate rules to enact them. Conservative Democrats argue that doing so will cause exactly the same damage to American democracy that the Democrats are seeking to repair.
“While I will continue to support these bills,” she said, “I will not support separate actions that exacerbate the underlying disease of division that is infecting our country. ”
The speech was a distillation of Sinema’s brand of self-declared independent politics: unequivocal in its praise of bipartisan civic ideals and subtle criticism of colleagues on both sides — especially Democrats — about their shortcomings in achieving those ideals.
In her eyes, Sinema condemned Democratic leaders for not doing enough to earn GOP support for their legislation. And she also criticized Democrats for the timing and nature of their Senate rule-changing debate, calling it “a bad alternative to what I believe there could be.” and should have been a thoughtful public debate at any time in the past year.”
(Democrats have repeatedly tried to pass voting reforms since coming to power last January, and Schumer was lucky for the months-long effort led by Manchin to garner votes. of the Republican Party.)
Sinema quickly went after Republicans for unanimously opposing the electoral reform proposal, saying she shared the “disappointment” of her colleagues that GOP lawmakers had failed to meet their “common accountability.” ” in their defense of democratic institutions.
But some of Sinema’s GOP colleagues – who sat on the floor to watch her speech in person – were happy to ignore the mild criticism and applaud Sinema’s public rebuke of the critics. her Democratic colleague.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell watched Sinema’s speech attentively from across the room, arms crossed in his lap and staring at the Arizona Democrat. Senator John Thune (R-SD) swings his legs back and forth, often resting his hand on his chin when he listens to Sinema’s soliloquy.
In the end, Sinema’s GOP colleagues didn’t give her a single round of applause and quickly returned to the debate over the Russian pipeline negotiations. But later, McConnell told reporters that Sinema had done nothing more than “save the Senate into an institution” and called her speech an “obvious act of political courage.”
