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The Audacious Lies Of That Cynical Senator Sinema

The Audacious Lies Of That Cynical Senator Sinema

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema could scarcely wait three days after the Georgia Senate runoff, which cemented Democratic control of the United States Senate, to announce that she no longer considers herself a member of that party and has changed her registration to independent. A politician who often seems obsessed with drawing attention to herself, the Arizona senator no doubt reveled in the publicity blitz ignited by her switch.

It would be refreshing to hear Sinema — who says she is "sometimes too honest" — speak candidly about this choice, which freshly enraged former supporters who have devoted energy and money to advance her career over the past two decades. But that would have required her to utter some unflattering truths about herself, and she isn't going there.

Instead, Sinema claimed she had "never really fit into a box of any political party," although she has presented herself as a progressive if pragmatic Democrat for the past 18 years without excessive discomfort. Having launched her political career with losing campaigns for local office in Phoenix, she left the Green Party behind to run for a state legislative seat as a Democrat in 2004 — and squeezed herself into that partisan box to eventually win three terms in Congress and then her first Senate victory in 2018.

The public identity that Sinema shaped during her rise to prominence — an open bisexual, committed feminist and environmentalist, strongly influenced by her impoverished childhood — is not one that the Republican Party would have tolerated, let alone celebrated. If she no longer "fits" in the Democratic Party, perhaps that's because she has drifted so far from the progressive values she once proclaimed. Anyone who watched her vote down a minimum wage increase with an irritating flourish on the Senate floor could see how she had changed.

But now she tells her constituents, in an essay for the Arizona Republic, that she felt compelled to reject the "rigid partisanship" she attributes to both major parties, which she decries for allowing the "loudest, most extreme voices to determine their respective priorities."

"In catering to the fringes," her complaint continues, "neither party has demonstrated much tolerance for diversity of thought. Bipartisan compromise is seen as a rarely acceptable last resort, rather than the best way to achieve lasting progress. Payback against the opposition party has replaced thoughtful legislating.

"Americans are told that we have only two choices — Democrat or Republican — and that we must subscribe wholesale to policy views the parties hold, views that have been pulled further and further toward the extremes."

As falsehoods go, this one is audacious, especially when uttered by an elected official from Arizona, where there is a large and menacing gang of real extremists who seek to thwart democracy, promote insane conspiracy theories and espouse violent white nationalism. None of them are in the Democratic Party.

Indeed, the Arizona Democratic Party includes no extremists of any stripe, only mainstream politicians whose views can hardly be described as radical. There is no Arizona Democrat who merits comparison with the other party's midterm slate of proto-fascists and election deniers; and none who deserves to be mentioned alongside the neo-Nazi state Sen. Wendy Rogers or the white nationalist Rep. Paul Gosar.

To babble about "both sides" in Arizona, as if the two parties are the same, is a nauseating lie — and of course Sinema knows it.

She also knows that the Democratic Party's national leaders are notoriously tolerant of different viewpoints, to the annoyance of some Democratic members of Congress. Indeed, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a longtime member of the Progressive Caucus, has been criticized for his working relationship with caucus moderates such as Rep. Josh Gottheimer. In the Senate, members of both parties regularly work on specific bills across the aisle, just as Sinema has done. And then there's President Joe Biden, whose insistence on reaching for bipartisan agreement won landmark deals on infrastructure and gun safety — while attracting abuse from the far Left and the far Right.

So why is Sinema lying? Could it be that the unadulterated truth isn't the self-flattering tale she would like us to believe?

Here is a more plausible narrative: Sinema's departures from Democratic principle have made her extremely unpopular within her own party, provoking a primary challenge from Rep. Ruben Gallego when she faces reelection in 2024. Her identity and voting record preclude her becoming a Republican, much as she seems attracted to them. Her approval ratings are dismal across voter categories in both parties. So, she has reinvented herself as an "independent," hoping to navigate a path between two opponents in 2024.

To pursue that opportunistic scheme means walking away from the party that stands for democracy, social decency, and the rule of law, and allowing the party that now represents none of those ideals to inch closer to power. Her complaints about "divisive, negative politics" would almost sound naive — if they weren't so cynical.

To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Lake Won't Concede, But Ducey Welcomes Hobbs As His Successor In Arizona

Lake Won't Concede, But Ducey Welcomes Hobbs As His Successor In Arizona

The lame-duck Republican governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, congratulated Democratic Governor-elect Katie Hobbs on her victory more than a week after major networks called the race for her.

Ducey met Hobbs in his office and — in his first public statement on the outcome of Arizona’s highly-charged gubernatorial race — promised her the full support of his administration in ensuring an orderly transition to her.

“Today I congratulated Governor-elect Katie Hobbs on her victory in a hard-fought race and offered my full cooperation as she prepares to assume the leadership of the State of Arizona,” Ducey tweeted on Wednesday.

Unintimidated by the election-denying ravings of the Trump-backed Republican candidate, Kari Lake, who has yet to concede in what she called a “botched election,” Ducey said in a statement that the result of the gubernatorial race reflected the will of Arizonans, peacefully communicated via a “democratic process.”

“All of us have waited patiently for the democratic process to play out,” he said. “The people of Arizona have spoken, their votes have been counted and we respect their decision.”

“My administration will work to make this transition as smooth and seamless as possible,” Ducey added. “Our duty is to ensure that Arizona’s 24th Governor and her team can hit the ground running and continue our state’s incredible momentum.”

Despite trailing Hobbs by about 17,000 votes, a margin above the automatic recount threshold, Lake has rebuffed the notion of concession and, in the past week, repeated baseless allegations of election fraud without any evidence.

On Election Day, Lake, a rising star in the GOP's MAGA sphere, cited reports of basic printer malfunctions in Maricopa County, the most populous jurisdiction in Arizona, as evidence of electoral daylight robbery perpetrated by Democrats in an election run by Republicans.

"They did it in broad daylight. It was blatant. There was no subtlety to what they did when they discriminated against people who chose to vote on Election Day,” Lake told indicted Trump ally Steve Bannon.

"This is just beyond 2020. I mean what they did in 2020, looks like they did it again, and then some. And for the Governor (@DougDucey), if he says he's going to certify this, and @KatieHobbs to certify this, I think they really better think long and hard," she added.

In July Ducey, the chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association, blasted Lake — who in the run-up to the midterms declined to say whether she would concede if she lost — for predicting without evidence that the 2022 elections would be stolen.

“Kari Lake is misleading voters with no evidence. She’s been tagged by her opponents with a nickname, Fake Lake, which seems to be sticking and actually doing some damage,” Ducey snapped on CNN’s State of the Union.

Ducey’s aversion to false voter fraud allegations made headlines when he sank Trump’s 2020 subversion efforts in fury-ridden depths by silencing a phone call from the election denier-in-chief while signing documents certifying Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state.

“Fake Lake,” who built her brand on Trump's Big Lie, filed a lawsuit via her political action committee, Kari Lake for Arizona, "to compel the prompt production of public records pursuant to the Arizona Public Records Act,” according to her court filing.

Lake’s attorney Timothy La Sota alleged in the legal brief that the issue with some printers in Maricopa County, which officials identified and fixed a few hours later, angered some Republican voters into leaving without casting their votes.

Like Trump’s failed 2020 “Kraken” lawsuits, Lake’s action relies on statements from voters for the laundry list of demands the Republican is asking of Maricopa County Superior Court, including the contact information of voters alleging they witnessed printer malfunction, the number of overseas ballots cast by military members, and how they were verified.

“In the absence of an immediate and comprehensive production of the requested public records, [Kari Lake] cannot ascertain the full extent of the problems identified and their impacts on electors,” La Sota wrote.

Lake’s filing followed another lawsuit filed by the Republican candidate for attorney general of Arizona, Abe Hamadeh, and the Republican National Committee against Maricopa County’s Republican election officials, alleging “certain errors and inaccuracies” in the management of some polling places and tabulation of some ballots.

Trailing his Democratic opponent, Kris Mayes, by 510 votes in a race set to go to a recount, Hamadeh said his lawsuit was the only means by which to restore voter confidence in Arizona’s “broken election system.”

Meanwhile Lake has continued to attack the election, tweeting on Wednesday night an image that said, “The cover-up is always worse than the crime.”


Lacking Evidence (And Lawyers), Arizona Trumpsters Want Midterm Overturned

Lacking Evidence (And Lawyers), Arizona Trumpsters Want Midterm Overturned

Trump Republicans who are seeking to overturn Arizona’s 2022 general election are preparing to sue up to 15 counties with the hope that they find a judge who will be sympathetic to a litany of conspiratorial claims, according to recruitment and briefing materials sent Wednesday seeking lawyers, plaintiffs, and funds.

The materials from “Arizona Constitutional Advocates,” which do not specify which race, or races, they contend were improperly administered, also suggest that the supporters of losing Trump-affiliated candidates will sue whether or not they are represented by a lawyer.

Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and GOP secretary of state nominee Mark Finchem were defeated, according to the media’s preliminary projections. Neither contest, as of Thursday, would trigger a legal recount.

Lake, in her first statement since losing to Democrat Katie Hobbs, said Thursday that she was assembling the “best and brightest legal team… to right these wrongs.” That boast was at odds, however, with the materials circulated by her supporters to hastily assemble a lawsuit to try to block Hobbs’ victory.

“There is a narrow window of 5 days after the election Certification to file a suit-complaint that out election was flawed,” said minutes from a Wednesday meeting by the Gila County Election Integrity Team. “We need to prepare now!”

“If no attorneys, we as plaintiffs could represent ourselves,” it said, under a section entitled “The Plan.”

“The goal in getting the case to many counties [is] so we could find judges that are favorable to hearing the case as we’ve had about 6 rejections in the past 2 years for other voting suits in Maricopa County. As we know the judges can be part of the problem.”

Six documents described the strategy. Two are filing instructions and forms, and court fees, for Maricopa County Superior Court, which is based in Phoenix. The others are the group’s Wednesday minutes, “Election Fraud Claim Info for Possible Plaintiffs,” “Grounds [to sue],” and “Redress of Grievances,” which describes filing of affidavits -- and “How To Call In The Military.”

Many of the purported claims have been circulating in far-right circles since Donald Trump lost the 2020 election in Arizona and nationwide. Some claims are newer and based on glitches that led to 17,000 ballots not being accepted by scanners in Maricopa County’s vote centers on Election Day. Those ballots, whose ink was too light to be read, were set aside, secured, and counted later.

However, none of the 22 issues listed in “Grounds” document specified how general election votes were improperly cast, or improperly counted, in a manner that would alter outcomes – which is the legal threshold to contest an election.

“Anyone can file a lawsuit for the filing fee,” said Chris Sautter, an election lawyer who has specialized in post-election challenges and recounts since the 1980s. “If you’re not doing a recount, the vehicle by which you challenge an election result is a contest. And in an election contest, you have to demonstrate in your pleadings that were it not for the actions you were contesting that the result would be different.”

Sautter reviewed the briefing materials and said that they were vaguer than the 60 lawsuits filed by Trump’s lawyers after the 2020 election that led to every suit except one on a procedural matter being rejected by state and federal courts.

“This is all reminiscent of the kinds of cases that were filed by Trump and his allies following the 2020 election, only these seem to be worse,” he said. “They’re more amateurish. At least, with Trump, you had lawyers in those cases, who knew how to frame the cause of action [when filing a suit]. You’re not going to get anywhere by just going in pro se and representing yourself and throwing out a bunch of allegations that will be dismissed pretty quickly.”

Sautter also said suing in multiple counties to find a sympathetic judge was naïve.

“These people are not going to outsmart the system, which seems to be what they are trying to do,” he said.

The Newest Allegations

The first allegation is one that Trump Republicans raised before Election Day in a few red-run counties. A handful of activists had urged county supervisors to replace state-approved vote-counting computers with a hand count – which none of the counties had done recently. The activists claim the federal accreditation of the testing labs that approved technology used in Arizona had expired.

“If the Lab was not accredited, the voting machines were not certified,” the minutes said. “And if the voting machines were not certified, the vote count (canvass) cannot be certified… and the election cannot be certified.”

The next allegation – “failure of audit without remedy” – concerned Cochise County, which still wants to do a hand count. The county’s attorney “refused to represent them – a dereliction of duty,” the minutes said, referring to a county attorney who said that state law clearly barred a county-run hand count.

The next allegation – “disenfranchisement” – claimed that voters in Maricopa County whose ballots were rejected by scanners were blocked from voting.

“If you are in Arizona, and you are one of the many who was turned away at the polls, or you had your ballot rejected, or later learned your vote was not counted – then sign and notarize a statement saying you were disenfranchised,” the minutes said. “Email your signed affidavit to CountMyVote@azgop.org.”

Another document that listed 22 “Grounds for Election Complaints—Maricopa & Other Counties” was even vaguer. It cited the above claims, and then issues such as “Lack of county department transparency,” “registration problems,” “no day of election records,” and more long-standing complaints from Trump Republicans.

“People came to voting centers to specifically be able to have their vote counted the day of elections were thereby unable to have their vote counted the day of the election, and potentially compromised their voter intent,” it said, reviving Trump’s contention that only votes cast on Election Day should count.

Among the “resources” to be viewed by possible plaintiffs were videos from Rumble, a pro-Trump media platform, “If Arizona Gets Stolen, Here’s How to Fight It,” a YouTube interview with 2020 election conspiracy theorist Cleta Mitchell, a segment from InfoWars, the website run by Alex Jones, who recently lost a major suit for attacking the parents of school children killed in the Newtown, Connecticut mass shooting.

“We seek bold trusted patriots who have had enough of stolen elections,” said a document seeking plaintiffs in 15 Arizona counties. “We’re working together to redress our claims at the courts and pray some judges hear our cases.”

Polls Miss Again As Voters Mobilize To Protect Elections and Abortion Rights

Polls Miss Again As Voters Mobilize To Protect Elections and Abortion Rights

In 2022’s general election, the most consequential results were not just the defeat of Trump Republicans and continuing reaffirmation of abortion rights. It was what those choices by majorities of voters said about their expectations for American democracy. The electoral system did not sabotage the clear will of voters, but, instead, aided turnout by offering many options to vote, including mail ballots.

There is no single explanation for the still-emerging outcomes in blue and red states. Indeed, some red states saw Trump Republicans whose 2022 candidacies were launched by the U.S. Capitol insurrection win – or at least stay ahead as votes were being counted at the weekend.

But the rejection of Trump-backed candidates, support for core freedoms like abortion rights, record turnouts in key states – lifted by convenient mailed-out ballots, and civil servants’ ability to handle turnout and run an orderly process -- was not what many polls and pundits were forecasting before Election Day.

Indeed, the same outlets that on Veterans Day were reporting that “vote integrity and abortion” shaped the midterms were, for weeks, citing polls that said 2022’s voters mostly cared about the price of gas, food, and inflation. Democracy and freedom were not on the ballot, apparently, until it was discovered they were.

“The polls were telling us that people didn’t care about democracy or abortion. In fact, that’s what they cared about,” said one analyst in a Thursday briefing. “Our interest [is not] in who won this election, but that this country continued to have free and fair elections and that our freedoms continued to be protected… Any other narrative about what happened is going to leave us vulnerable again.”

Election Deniers Rejected

It’s easy to overlook that these outcomes were possible because the nation’s election infrastructure – the multitude of election officials and poll workers, and the technologies they use to verify voters and count ballots – did the job that most Americans have expected over the years. That assumption changed, of course, during the course of Donald Trump’s presidency, when Trump started attacking the accuracy of the system before he was elected, and especially after he was defeated in 2020. Millions of Republicans believed him and still do.

For the past two years, Trump and his allies hoped to create a path for a 2024 comeback by pushing national and state GOP organizations to back candidates for state constitutional offices that had varying degrees of authority to alter the rules surrounding access to a ballot, how votes are counted, and winners are certified. Many of those same candidates also embraced Trump’s belligerent attitude and vowed to revive culture wars – led by banning abortion.

That unofficial Republican Party platform, where many current GOP candidates claimed that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, expressed little reluctance to tilting voting rules for the GOP’s benefit, and assailed many civil rights, became known as “election denialism” in the press and political circles.

The earliest returns on Tuesday night showed election deniers losing key state and federal races in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. By midday Thursday, only five new election-denying candidates out of 94 seeking statewide office had been elected, according to the States United Democracy Center, a bipartisan pro-democracy organization that has been monitoring these candidates.

“Election Denial as a platform was a new tactic we saw this year, and the results show that it didn’t work,” said Joanna Lydgate, CEO of States United Action, its advocacy arm. “So far, most of the Election Deniers who have won statewide office were already sitting elected officials in states that voted for Trump.”

“We’re still waiting on results from Arizona, Nevada, and a few other states,” she said. “But Americans have already sent a clear message: They believe in our free and fair elections. And they don’t want Election Deniers to have power over their vote.”

The rebuke was even wider than States United’s tally. In Michigan, voters passed a ballot measure with a slate of election reforms to make voting more accessible and transparent. Nevada voters passed an expansive equal rights clause to their state constitution. Voters in Michigan, like California and Vermont, opted to add abortion rights to their state constitutions. Voters in red Kentucky, like Kansas this past summer, rejected proposed constitutional limits on abortion.

Many pre-election polls missed these pro-democracy and freedom sentiments. That conventional wisdom began to crack on Election Day, when the Associated Press’ Election Day poll of 94,000 voters – a much bigger sample than most pre-election polls – reported “about half of voters say inflation factored significantly in their vote,” but “slightly fewer voters — 44% — say the future of democracy was their primary consideration.”

The economy, of course, always matters. But democracy was on the ballot.

Still, The Election Isn’t Over

Meanwhile, anti-democratic threats from Trump Republicans remain.

While Democrats have preserved their U.S. Senate majority, the U.S. House, which President Joe Biden said on Wednesday may have a slim GOP majority, will have a GOP caucus filled with election deniers, including scores of representatives who voted against certifying the 2020 Electoral College after the insurrection.

In other battlegrounds, such as Nevada and Arizona, by Saturday evening it appeared that Democrats had defeated or were positioned to defeat most Trump Republicans. Nevada’s incumbent Democratic Senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, was projected by the Associated Press to win her contest, preserving the body’s Democrat’s majority. Another Democrat, Cisco Aguilar, was projected to win the race for secretary of state. In Arizona, Democrat Adrian Fontes was projected to win the secretary of state race.

Masto, Aguilar and Fontes all defeated Trump Republicans who were among their state’s most vocal election deniers. However, some election deniers were winning high office. In Nevada, Joe Lombardo, a Las Vegas area sheriff endorsed by Trump, was elected governor. In Florida, Gov. Rick DeSantis, an authoritarian Republican, was returned to office. In deep red Wyoming, an election denier was elected as secretary of state.

As 2022’s election continues toward the process of officially certifying winners, it will be intriguing to see how the pro-democracy messages sent by voters will play out. In Arizona and Nevada, where the GOP ticket is led by candidates who not only rejected Biden’s victory, but also colluded with rogue county boards to take over counting ballots and declaring winners, some chaos is stewing.

These frays may be sideshows when compared to state and nationwide trends. But Trump and his allies have used local fights over election results and voting technology in a handful of counties to perpetuate his stolen election narrative and to sustain doubts about 2020, and to fundraise.

On Thursday, the Trump Republican-led board of supervisors in Cochise County, Arizona, announced it will meet next week to start a hand count that was blocked by a state court on Monday. The supervisors did not want to use a state-approved voting system, which reflects their distrust of computers that tally votes.

Initially, they wanted to hand count ballots and use those figures as the results – which a non-Trump Republican lawyer told me would let them create whatever totals they wanted. The hand count, which is likely to be stopped by the Arizona Supreme Court, is led by the former lawyer for the Cyber Ninjas, the Florida firm that oversaw the discredited post-2020 review sanctioned by state senators.

Voting rights lawyers are following these antics. In 2020’s post-election period, Trump and his allies filed more than 60 lawsuits filled with false claims but lacking in factual evidence – the basis of judicial rulings. He lost every suit except one. But they were a bonanza for creating stolen election propaganda in right-wing media.

In 2022, Trump Republicans claim they are better organized. They have recruited volunteers to gather evidence of malfeasance. If and how those reports are cited in future court filings, or surface in pro-Trump media, remains to be seen.

Most Conspiracists Sidelined

But what hovers over these ongoing developments in the 2022 general election is wide rejection of Trump Republican candidates and other signs that voters were moved by democracy issues and voted to protect elections and abortion rights.

The list of election deniers and rightwing culture warriors who lost bids for state office keeps growing, as tracked by States United Action.

Nationally, at least 42 million voters, a third of the electorate, cast mailed-out ballots, according to The National Vote at Home Institute, a non-profit that assists officials with this option. That usage will set a record for a midterm election and affirms that voters welcome flexible voting options and want to be heard.

Moreover, Election Day voting did not see widespread incidents of threats to election officials, or disputes among election workers and partisan observers, as many election insiders had feared. Nationally, officials administered an orderly process, even though some locales experienced glitches that delayed voters.

What stood out in the final Election Day briefing by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, were singular incidents where individuals with right-wing sympathies bullied or hurled “racial slurs” at voters waiting in line, and problems with voting sites near universities that were impeding students (which isn’t new). Such intolerance, which predates Trump, still lingers in his base.

But mostly, voters opted for candidates that did not want to subvert elections and to protect personal freedom. And today’s voting rules and infrastructure allowed record numbers of voters cast ballots and accurately recorded their choices.

“So far, new Election Denier candidates have only won around five percent of all races for statewide office,” said Thania Sanchez, State United Action’s senior vice president of research and policy development. “And there aren’t enough uncalled races left for that trend to shift much.”

Steven Rosenfeld is the editor and chief correspondent of Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has reported for National Public Radio, Marketplace, and Christian Science Monitor Radio, as well as a wide range of progressive publications including Salon, AlterNet, The American Prospect, and many others.

This article was produced by Voting Booth, a project of the Independent Media Institute.