Posted on 12/09/2022 3:10:30 AM PST by RandFan
Arizona Sen. KYRSTEN SINEMA is changing her party affiliation to independent, delivering a jolt to Democrats’ narrow majority and Washington along with it.
“In a 45-minute interview, the first-term senator told POLITICO that she will not caucus with Republicans and suggested that she intends to vote the same way she has for four years in the Senate. ‘Nothing will change about my values or my behavior,’ she said.
“Provided that Sinema sticks to that vow, Democrats will still have a workable Senate majority in the next Congress, though it will not exactly be the neat and tidy 51 seats they assumed. They’re expected to also have the votes to control Senate committees. And Sinema’s move means Sen. JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) — a pivotal swing vote in the 50-50 chamber the past two years — will hold onto some but not all of his outsized influence in the Democratic caucus.”
As a House Rep true but not as a Senator.
“The top two Senate Democrats who have voted against their party the most often in the current Congress are Manchin at 11% and Jon Tester of Montana at 3.2%, according to ProPublica. Sinema has voted against her party six times this Congress, or 2.8% of the time, putting her in third place, according to ProPublica.
During the 115th Congress, Sinema as a member of the U.S. House voted with former President Donald Trump 62.6% of the time and in the 116th Congress, as a senator, she voted with him 26.2% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.
However, she has a 100% record of voting with Biden in this Congress.”
Ok, that explains a lot.
With Manchin and Sinema, I expect that the filibuster is not in jeopardy.
That was a mouthful!
She is no longer subject to pressure from the Democratic Party. Their threats no longer have much effect.
Yeah, some punctuation got mangled there.
And I was sober so I have no excuses
I am sure this was coordinated with Schumer. Very likely, the Dems will not field a candidate in Arizona in 2024 so as to enable her to win. I guess the question is whether the GOP and Independent voters in Arizona are stupid enough to fall for it. I’m guessing so.
Yeh, probably so. Sadly though, Arizona is stuck with Kelley for six more years 😡….
Sanders and King ‘caucus’ with the Democrats; Sienna now will not; so the Democratic Caucus has 50; the Republicans 49 and Sienna a ‘true’ independent.
It’s awful, but that is the way it works.
There will be more Republicans in the chamber than democrats in the new senate on day 1 and almost every other day of the session unless someone is missing on the R side.
On the D side; they still will have trouble getting things done when people like Feinstein can’t make it in to work.
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