Tag: senate democrats
Senate Democrats Will Retain Majority Despite Sinema's Sudden Shift

Senate Democrats Will Retain Majority Despite Sinema's Sudden Shift

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema announced Friday that she changed her affiliation from the Democratic Party to independent. But she indicated that this move would not functionally change the new Senate's 51-49 Democratic majority.

"Like a lot of Arizonans, I have never fit perfectly in either national party," Sinema wrote in an Arizona Republicop-ed. "Becoming an independent won't change my work in the Senate; my service to Arizona remains the same."

While Sinema did not promise to formally caucus with the Democratic majority on Friday, she indicated she plans to continue to get her committee assignments from the Democrats and told Politico, "I don't anticipate that anything will change about the Senate structure." She also explicitly told the paper that she will not join the Republican caucus.

If she is counted as a member of a 51-49 Democratic majority or forms her own bloc in a 50-49-1 Democratic majority, control of the Senate will not be impacted and Democrats will still likely hold an outright majority on committees and the Senate floor.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer confirmed that Sinema would keep her committee assignments with the Democratic caucus.

"I believe she's a good and effective Senator and am looking forward to a productive session in the new Democratic majority Senate," he said in a press statement. "We will maintain our new majority on committees, exercise our subpoena power, and be able to clear nominees without discharge votes."

Two other current senators — Maine's Angus King and Vermont's Bernie Sanders — identify as independents but caucus with the Democrats and get their committee assignments as Democrats.

In the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats held every single Senate seat they controlled and gained an open Republican seat in Pennsylvania. This gave their caucus a 51 seat majority, rather than the current Senate's 50-50 split, where Vice President Kamala Harris breaks ties in favor of the Democrats.

Sinema has clashed with most of the Democratic Party in the past on issues such as filibuster reform and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. She has voted with President Joe Biden more than 93 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.

In a statement, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre praised Sinema as a "key partner on the historic legislation President Biden has championed over the last 20 months," and observed, "We understand that her decision to register as an independent in Arizona does not change the new Democratic majority control of the Senate, and we have every reason to expect that we will continue to work successfully with her."

The move could have ramifications for Arizona's 2024 Senate election.

Sinema has not said whether she plans to seek another term. If she had remained a Democrat, she may have faced a primary challenge from Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego, who has frequently criticized her record. As an independent, she can run in the general election without participating in a party primary.

The last Democratic senator to leave the party to become an independent was Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, in 2006.

In 2003, the Hartford Courantcovered an anti-Lieberman protest organized by Sinema during his presidential campaign visit to Arizona.

"He's a shame to Democrats," Sinema, then a social worker, told the paper. "I don't even know why he's running. He seems to want to get Republicans voting for him — what kind of strategy is that?"

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

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.

Poll: Americans Reject Senate Republican Assault On Judge Jackson

Poll: Americans Reject Senate Republican Assault On Judge Jackson

If you watched any of the Supreme Court hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson and found yourself repulsed by Republicans, you weren't alone. In a Quinnipiac University poll released late last week, 52 percent of Americans disapproved of the way GOP senators were handling the historic confirmation process for Judge Jackson's nomination, while just 27 percent approved of it (21 percent didn't offer an opinion).

In contrast, a 42 percent plurality of Americans approved of the way Democrats handled the process, while 34 percent disapproved (23 percent offered no opinion).

Americans also support confirming Jackson to the high court 51 percent to 30 percent, according to the poll.

As The Washington Post's Aaron Blake pointed out, Republicans fared worse in their handling of Jackson's confirmation than Democrats did in their handling of the contentious hearings for Brett Kavanaugh—who faced a credible sexual assault allegation amid his confirmation.

Republicans received a 25-point net negative rating from the public (27 percent--52 percent) for the way they comported themselves during Jackson's process, while a CNN/SSRS poll in October 2018 found Democrats received a 20-point net negative rating from the public (36 percent--56 percent) during the Kavanaugh confirmation.

The public also opposed confirming Kavanaugh by 51 percent--41 percent. In fact, the place where Kavanaugh really excelled with the public was in the 33 percent who held a "very negative" view of him. For comparison, eight percent of Americans had a very negative view of Neil Gorsuch and seven percent held a very negative view of John Roberts in CNN polls during confirmation for the two eventual justices.

In any case, the main differences between the Jackson and Kavanaugh confirmations is the fact Jackson is substantially more popular and that during consideration of Kavanaugh, neither party fared particularly well in the public's estimation of their handling of the confirmation process. In fact, Republicans also received a 20-point net negative rating from Americans—35 percent--55 percent—for the way they handled Kavanaugh's confirmation, whereas Democrats won plurality support for their handling of Jackson’s confirmation.

But Republicans clearly aren't concerned one bit that a majority of Americans disapprove of the way they conducted themselves during consideration of a nominee who will likely become the Supreme Court's first Black female justice. In fact, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is currently pressuring his caucus to vote against Judge Jackson’s confirmation.

The only audience Republicans ever really care about—particularly in a pre-midterm environment—is the 27 percent who said they approved of how the GOP has handled the Jackson hearings. It's always about juicing the base for Republicans, who continue to be out of step with the majority of Americans on most issues concerning voters. But it's who shows up at the polls that matters, and Republicans will continue to ignore American majorities as long as they don't face any real electoral consequences for their extreme positions.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

'Titan': Former US Senate Leader Harry Reid Dies At 82

'Titan': Former US Senate Leader Harry Reid Dies At 82

Washington (AFP) - Former US Senate majority leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat who rose from humble beginnings to lead the upper chamber during the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, has died aged 82.

"I am heartbroken to announce the passing of my husband," his wife, Landra, said in a statement released to US media, adding he died "peacefully... surrounded by our family."

Reid, who used his experience in Congress to help Obama steer his landmark Affordable Care Act through the Senate, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2018.

Laconic and soft-spoken, Reid was born and raised in the mining town of Searchlight, Nevada on December 2, 1939, in a house with no hot water or indoor toilets.

A prize-fighter in his youth, he used his pugilistic instincts to work his way up to becoming one of the longest-serving majority leaders in the history of the US senate, and even called his memoir The Good Fight.

Current Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said Reid was "one of the most amazing individuals I've ever met."

"He never forgot where he came from and used those boxing instincts to fearlessly fight those who were hurting the poor & middle class," Schumer said on Twitter.

'Skill And Determination'

Despite his hardscrabble upbringing, he was elected to the Senate in 1986 and became the upper chamber's Democratic leader in the 2004 elections. He served as Senate majority leader from 2007 to 2015.

Reid often referred to his working class origins -- his father was a miner, his mother a laundress, and neither parent graduated from high school.

He hitchhiked 40 miles (65 kilometers) as a teenager to attend the nearest high school, and then graduated from Utah State University and put himself through George Washington University Law School by working nights as a member of the US Capitol police.

Quixotic, he once filibustered the Republicans by himself for nine hours, by reading from the history book he wrote about his hometown of Searchlight.

Reid was more conservative than most other Democrats in the Senate. A practicing Mormon, he was staunchly against abortion rights -- a stance that sometimes found him working at cross purposes with others in his Democratic caucus.

In lieu of a statement, Obama made public a letter he had written to Reid shortly before his death, in which he said: "I wouldn't have been president had it not been for your encouragement and support, and I wouldn't have got most of what I got done without your skill and determination."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Reid a "titan," describing him as "a leader of immense courage and ferocious conviction who worked tirelessly to achieve historic progress for the American people."

Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader in the Senate, said that Reid's rise from poverty to political power was a "quintessentially American story, and it took Harry's legendary toughness, bluntness, and tenacity to make it happen."