By Walter Einenkel for Daily Kos
Daily Kos Staff
On Tuesday, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona announced that she will not be seeking reelection as an independent. The good news is that Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego will now face off against Republican looney toon Kari Lake without former Democrat Sinema as a third-party distraction.
The other good news is that Sinema will be leaving the Senate, along with her cynical sartorial style and her infuriating record of voting against her Democratic colleagues.
Sinema’s decision not to seek another term is not a surprise. Her repeated betrayal of the constituency that voted her into the Senate in 2018, when she was still a Democrat—including her decision after the 2022 midterms to leave the party—greatly diminished her chances of winning reelection as an independent.
Reports that she was ready to make big bucks in the private sector began leaking in 2023. Now she will have all the time in the world to make all the corporate money she wants.
Here are a few memorable moments from Sinema’s appalling tenure in the Senate.
1. She blocked all attempts at filibuster reform. Joining forces with the equally odious Sen. Joe Manchin, she was able to thwart or blunt the edges of every serious piece of progressive legislation Democrats introduced, including the John Lewis Voting Rights Act—for which she was censured by the Arizona Democratic Party.
2. Then there was her infamous curtsy. Sinema helped sink an amendment to raise the minimum wage, stabbing working families in the back and making a big show of it too, with a gleeful thumbs down and a curtsy—and a refusal to explain herself.
It is estimated that a minimum wage increase would have affected nearly 32 million workers—19 million of whom are women.
3. She made a big to-do about telling everybody that a Jan. 6 commission was “critical,” then skipped an important Senate vote for creating that commission. Her spokesperson had the audacity to comment that Sinema would “be entering into the Congressional record that she would've voted yes."
4. Sinema fundraised off big business groups that opposed the Democratic Party’s progressive social policy and climate bill.
At the same time she was begging for big business money, she was reportedly telling fellow senators behind the scenes that she was “averse to the corporate and individual tax rate increases” that would be needed to pay for budget expenditures.
5. She forced a Senate committee to delay a vote on an aviation bill concerning the amount of training required for commercial pilots.
Her alternative aviation training proposal earned the ire of Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Army veteran helicopter pilot on the committee. Duckworth said Sinema’s alternate proposal to loosen pilot training requirements would “mean blood on your hands when the inevitable accident occurs as a result of an inadequately trained flight crew.”
6. Sinema posted a picture to her social media account, prominently displaying a “fuck off” ring. The move seemed to be a callous response to the heavy public criticism she received over her failure to support wage earners.
7. Sinema got a paid internship at a California winery. In the middle of the pandemic! And while a spokesperson said “the Senate Ethics Committee preapproved Sinema's work,” there was no further explanation offered for why she took the internship, why she took the money for the internship, and why she had nothing better to do that summer.
8. Sinema also voted against a Biden judicial nomination—for no discernible reason! Sinema’s vote against U.S. District Judge S. Kato Crews after voting in 97 appointees during the Trump administration remains baffling.
When news broke Tuesday that Sinema will not be seeking another term, Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, put it best.
“Kyrsten Sinema will go down in history as a feckless, corrupt egomaniac who sabotaged abortion and voting rights and destroyed her own political career in the process,” she tweeted. “Enjoy your lobbying gig and leave the rest of us alone forever.”
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