Doc7505
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- Feb 16, 2016
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Kyrsten Sinema's Messy Breakup With the Democrats Is Complete
23 Mar 2023 ~~ By Stephen KruiserWhen Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) left the Democratic party last December and registered as an independent, it didnāt seem to be a parting of the ways that was filled with acrimony. She struck a deal to keep her committee assignments and maintain a loose relationship with the Senate Democrats, so it almost seemed as if nothing had changed but the party affiliation letter in the media that came after her name.
United States senators tend to be collegial a lot of the time, so none of that was surprising. Back here in Arizona, however, things were playing out much differently.
The people in charge of the Democratic party in Arizona loathe Sinema. It wasnāt the very public policy disagreements that she was occasionally having with her colleagues in the Senate that initially fueled Sinemaās party switch, it was the ugliness at home. Despite the fact that Sinema is still a die-hard leftist on most issues, you had a much better chance of finding a Republican here who would say something nice about her by the time Christmas rolled around last year.
Judging from an article that my friend and colleague Stephen Green passed along to me, it would now appear that the relationship between Sinema and Democrats has soured all around.
~Snip~
One thing is certain, Sinema isnāt going to be invited to many Senate Democrat soirees anymore:
āThose lunches were ridiculous,ā she told a small group of Republican lobbyists at a reception in Washington this year in explaining why she had stopped attending her caucusā weekly luncheons in the Capitol, according to an attendee.
First off, she explained, she was no longer a Democrat. āIām not caucusing with the Democrats, Iām formally aligned with the Democrats for committee purposes,ā Sinema said. āBut apart from that I am not a part of the caucus.ā
Then she let loose.
āOld dudes are eating Jell-O, everyone is talking about how great they are,ā Sinema recounted to gales of laughter. āI donāt really need to be there for that. Thatās an hour and a half twice a week that I can get back.ā
I chuckled when I first read āOld dudes are eating Jell-O,ā and I donāt chuckle a lot. I may have to borrow that line (with attribution, of course). Hey, sheās my senator.Kyrsten Sinema gets called a lot of things by a lot of people these days.
āBoringā is never one of those things.
Commentary:
Kyrsten Sinema still caucuses with Democrats. When she caucuses with the GOP, that will be the final breakup. She votes like them and believes the same things they do. The fact that sheās an āIndependentā is just a charade to get dumb Republicans to think sheās somewhat conservative because she was going to be primaried as a Democrat. (See Joe Lieberman).