Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema Leaves Democratic Party
Despite registering as an independent, Sinema will continue to caucus with Democrats and keep her committee assignments.
U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, one of only two LGBTQ members, and the only bisexual, in the U.S. Senate, has disaffiliated from the Democratic Party and become an independent, just days after her former party won a runoff election in Georgia and secured an outright majority in the 100-member chamber.
Sinema made the announcement on Friday, penning an op-ed for the Arizona Republic explaining her decision to leave the Democratic Party. Her announcement made waves in Washington, with some speculating that her defection could throw control of the U.S. Senate into question.
However, Sinema said she would not caucus with the Republican Party, according to an interview she gave to Politico.
“Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,” she said in the interview.
Assuming she sticks to that promise, in order to keep her committees, she’d have to caucus with Democrats. That would give the Democratic caucus — currently comprised of 48 Democrats and two independents, Angus King (Maine) and Bernie Sanders (Vt.) — a 51st vote, and ensure that Democrats hold an extra seat on committees, thereby making it easier to move legislation and judicial nominations to the floor for votes.
Under the current 50-50 split in the Senate, there is a special, convoluted process involving procedural votes to discharge nominations and bills from committees if a committee deadlocks on a particular issue — effectively slow-walking the process of getting anything accomplished in the upper chamber.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) confirmed in a statement to Reuters that he had agreed to allow Sinema to keep her committee assignments going forward into the next Congress, which would allow Democrats to move legislation and — more importantly, given the conservative bent of the federal judiciary — long-stalled nominations to executive agencies and district and circuit courts to the floor for up-or-down votes at a quicker pace.
While Sinema is not the first senator to switch parties while in office — former Sens. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) come to mind — declaring her “independence” from the Democratic Party ensures that she will remain a crucial senator when it comes to making deals or negotiating on legislation, as she can threaten to block procedural votes if she does not get her way.
For the past two years, Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) have proven to be thorns in Democratic leadership’s side, withholding votes for legislation prioritized by President Joe Biden until they receive concessions, and refusing to waive the filibuster rule requiring a supermajority of 60 votes for any legislation to be passed by the Senate.
Sinema, who is up for re-election in 2024, has also thrown a wrench Democrats’ attempts to hold onto the upper chamber. While public polling shows that a majority of Arizonans, regardless of political affiliation, hold negative views of her, a third-party run as an independent could — at least hypothetically, give her a path to victory by appealing to independents and moderates within the two parties.
But realistically, Sinema has never been extraordinarily popular with Republican voters, meaning few are likely to back her in a general election. Therefore, Democrats risk sacrificing the seat by fracturing their coalition’s voters if they nominate a viable and well-known candidate, such as U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, for the seat. In past cycles, Democrats in Maine and Vermont have typically nominated placeholder candidates against King and Sanders — both of whom are also up for re-election in 2024 — in order to avoid allowing Republicans to consolidate their votes and emerge victorious with only a plurality of support.
In her op-ed for the Republic, Sinema cast her decision to leave the Democratic Party as one based on principle and rejection of extreme partisanship.
“Like a lot of Arizonans, I have never fit perfectly in either national party,” she wrote. “While Arizonans don’t all agree on the issues, we are united in our values of hard work, common sense and independence. … We don’t line up to do what we’re told, automatically subscribe to whatever positions the national political parties dictate or view every issue through labels that divide us.
“Pressures in both parties pull leaders to the edges, allowing the loudest, most extreme voices to determine their respective parties’ priorities and expecting the rest of us to fall in line. In catering to the fringes, neither party has demonstrated much tolerance for diversity of thought,” she added. “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.”
Noting that she pledged to be an independent voice in the U.S. Senate, Sinema has touted her legislative accomplishments while in office — including her work on the recently passed Respect for Marriage Act — as the result of bipartisan compromise, promising that while her party label might change, her values and willingness to work with her fellow senators, regardless of affiliation, will not.
“Some partisans believe they own this Senate seat. They don’t,” she said. “ This Senate seat doesn’t belong to Democratic or Republican bosses in Washington. It doesn’t belong to one party or the other, and it doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to Arizona, which is far too special a place to be defined by extreme partisans and ideologues. It’s an honor to represent the state I love so much in the U.S. Senate. And while I do, I pledge to continue doing exactly what I promised — to be an independent voice for Arizona. ”
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